W. H. Auden
Louis AIueNeiee
LETTEttS
WHOM ICELANM0
Wuher nnd JFaher
24 Russell Square
London
First published in July Mcmxxxvii
by Faber and Faber Limited
24 Russell Square London W.C. 1
Printed in Great Britain by
R, MacLehose and Company Limited
The University Press Glasgow
All rights reserved
To
GEORGE AUGUSTUS AUDEN
Preface
A travel book owes so little to the writers, and so nmch to
the people they meet, that a full and fair acknowledgment
on the part of the former is impossible.
We must beg those hundreds of anonymous Icelanders,
farmers, fishermen, busmen, children, etc., who arc the real
authors of this book to accept collectively our gratitude.
In particular we should like to thank The Icelandic Ship-
ping Co., The Stat-Tourist Bureau, Mr. and Mrs. Erikur
Benedictzson, Mr. Olafur Briem, Mr. Ragnar Jonasson,
Professor Sigurdur Nordal and Professor Ami Pallsson of
Reykjavik University, Dr. Jonas Ldrusson and Dr. Gislis-
son of the Studentagardur, Mr. and Mrs. Kristian Andreirs-
son, Mr. Stefan Stefansson, Mr. Snaebjorn Jonsson, Mr. and
Mrs. Little, Mr. Atli Olafson, Mr. Halldor Laxness, Mr.
Tomas Gudmundsson, Dr. Sorenson, Mr. Thorbjom Thbr-
darson, Dr. Kristiansson of Sanddbokur, Mr. Bjarkans of
Akureyri, Mr. Gerry PSllsson, our two guides Stengrimur
and Ari (we never found out their other name), Mr. Joa-
chimsson of Isafjordur, Mr. Gudmundur Hagalin, and Dr.
Sveinsson and family, to whom we must also apologise for
entirely destroying a bed.
Lastly we must express our gratitude to Professor E, V,
Gordon for invaluable introductions and advice, to Mr.
Frazer Hoyland for three photographs and much else, and
to Mr. Michael Yates for his company and the use of his
diary.
9
W.H.A.
L.M.
Contents
I. Letter to Lord Byron (W.H. A.), Parti pagen
II. Journey to Iceland 25
III. Louis MacNeice to Graham and Anne Shepard 31
IV. For Tourists 36
V. Letter to Lord Byron, Part II 49
VI. Sheaves from Sagaland 60
VII. W. H. Auden to R.H.S. Grossman, Esq. 91
VIII. Letter to Lord Byron, Part III 99
IX. W. H. Auden to E. M. Auden, No. 1 108
X. Eclogue from Iceland'(L.M.) ■ 124
XI. W. H. Auden to E. M. Auden, No. 2 136
XII. Hetty to Nancy 156
XIII. Letter to Lord Byron, Part IV 200
XIV. W.H. Auden to Kristian Andreirsson, Esq. 213
XV. W.H. Auden to William Coldstream, Esq. 220
XVI. Letter to Lord Byron, Part V 232
XVII. Auden and MacNeice: Their Last Will and
Testament 236
Epilogue (L.M.) 259
Appendix 262
11
Illustrations
Leaving Hraensnef frontispiece
The lover of islands facing page 26
Then let the good citizen here find natural marvels 26
And the weak vow of fidelity is formed by the Cairn 27
Photograph by permission of Jonas Liirusson
The student of prose and conduct 32
Fil'tccnth-century screen in Museum 33
PhotographbyW.F.Hoyland
An old farm 38
A new school • 38
The natural setting for the jealousies of a province 39
Phtograph by permission of Jonas Ldrusson
Grylla 39
Photograph by W* F. Hoyland
Caf6 North Pole 42
Farm in the desert 42
New communications 43
New contacts 43
HeadbyKjarval 64
Mount Hekla from Odde 65
The geysfps, as seen July 30, 1814 80
The mountains of Iceland 81
Reykjavik 1735 81
13
Illustrations
The shuffling couples in their heavy hoots
facing page 96
Back to the hands, the feet, the faces
96
The accordion playing
97
Haymakers resting
112
Herring'gutting
113
Lake shore
113
Christian and Mr. Worldly Wiseman
144
The Arctic stare
144
Local swimming sports
145
Herring factory
148
Whaling station during the Itmch-hoiw
148
Flensing by steam-winch
149
The corpse
149
Stella’s hoot
156
Shoeing
157
Horses on lava
157
Head
160
Tail
160
Free hot water
161
With paucity that never was simplicity
161
Farmer
214
Haymaker
214
GermanischerTypus
215
Fisher girls
215
Snapped in the paddock
218
What the tourist does not see
218
Oddur
219
Yaldimar
219
The motorboat cost 40 kronur
224
Epic, the Drifters tradition
224
Louis
225
Michadi
225
Photograph by W. F. Hoyland
14
Illustrations
Diagrams
1. Relation ofhabitable to uninhabitable land page 262
2. Kinds of habitable land 263
3. livestock 264
4* Distribution of population by occupation 265
5. Graph shewing urbanisation 266
6. Graph of exports and imports 267
7. Foreign Trade 268
A Map of Iceland at tlw end of the book
15
Chapter 1
Letter to Lord Byron
PART I
Excuse, my lord, the liberty I take
In thus addressing you. I know that you
Will pay the price of authorship and make
The allowances an author has to do.
A poet’s fan-mail will be nothing new.
And then a lord — Good Lord, you must be peppered.
Like Gary Cooper, Coughlin, or Dick Sheppard,
With notes from ^perfect strangers starting, ‘Sir,
I liked your lyrics, but Chihk Harold’s trash’,
‘My daughter writes, should I encourage her?’
Sometimes containing frank demands for cash.
Sometimes sly hints at a platonic pash,
And sometimes, though I think this rather crude.
The correspondent’s photo in the rude.
And as for manuscripts — ^by every post . . .
I can’t improve on Pope’s shnU indignation.
But hope that it wUl please his spiteful ghost
To learn the use in culture’s propagation
Of modern methods of communication;
New roads, new rails, new contacts, as we know
From documentaries by the G.P.O.
17
B
Letter to Lord Byron
For since the British Ishis went Protestant
A church confession is too high for most.
But still confession is a human want,
So Englishmen must make theirs now by post
And authors hear them over bn^akfast toast.
For, failing them, there’s nothing but the wall
Of public lavatories on wMch to scrawl.
So if ostensibly I write to you
To chat about your poiitry or mine,
Thcre’re many other reasons; though it’s tme
That I have, at the age of twenty-nine
Just read Don Juan and I found it lino.
I read it on the boat to Reykjavik
Except when eating or asleep or sick.
The fact is, I’m in Iceland all alone
— MacKenisie’s prints are not unlike the scene —
Ich hab’ ssu Haus, ein Gra, ein Gramophone.
Les gosses anglais aiment beaucoup lea machines.
ToKaAov. glubit. che . . . what this may mean
I do not know, but rather like the sound
Of foreign languages like Ezra Pound. ,
And home is miles away, and miles away
No matter who, and I am quite alone
And cannot understand what people say,
But like a dog must guess it by the tone;
At any language other than my own
I’m no great shakes, and here I’ve found no tutor
Nor sleeping lexicon to make me cuter.
The thought of writing came to me to-day
(I like to give these facts of time and space);
The bus was in the desert on its way
From Mothrudalur to some other place;
18
Letter to Lord Byron
The tears were streaming down my burning face;
I’d caught a heavy cold in Afcureyri,
And lunch was late and life looked very dreary.
Professor Housman was I think the first
To say in print how very stimulating
The little ills by which mankind is cursed.
The colds, the aches, the pains are to creating;
Indeed one hardly goes too far in stating
That many a flawless lyric may be due
Not to a lover’s broken heart, but ’flu.
But still a proper explanation’s lacking;
Why write to you? I see I must begin
Right at the start when I was at my packing.
The extra pair of socks, the airtight tin
Of China tea, the anti-fly were in;
I asked myself what sort of books I’d read
In Iceland, if I ever felt the need.
I can’t read Jefferies on the Wiltshire Downs,
Nor browse on limericks in a smoking-room;
Who would try Trollope in cathedral towns.
Or Marie Stopes inside his mother’s womb ?
Perhaps you feel the same beyond the tomb.
Do the celestial highbrows only care
For works on Clydeside, Fascists, or Mayfair?
In certain quarters I had heard a rumour
(For all I know the rumour’s only silly)
That Icelanders have little sense of humour.
I knew the country was extremely hilly.
The climate unreliable and chilly;
So looking round for something light and easy
I pounced on you as warm and civilis^.
19
Letter to Lord Byron
There is one other author in my pack:
For some time I debated which to write to.
Which would least likely send my letter back?
But I decided that I’d give a fright to
J ane Austen if I wrote when I’d no right to.
And share in her contempt the dreadful fates
Of Crawford, Musgrave, and of Mr. Yates.
Then she’s a novelist. I don’t know whether
You will agree, but novel writing is
A higher art than poetry altogether
In my opinion, and success implies
Both finer character and faculties-
Perhaps that’s why real novels are as rare
As winter thunder or a polar bear.
The average poet by comparison
Is unobservant, immature, and lazy.
You must admit, when aU is said and done,
His sense of other people’s very hazy,
His moral judgments arc too often crazy,
A slick and easy generalisation
Appeals too well to his imagination.
I must remember, though, that you were dead
Before the four great Russians lived, who brought
The art of novel writing to a head;
The help of Boots had not been sought.
But now the art for which Jane Austen fought,
Under the right persuasion bravely warms
And is the most prodigious of the forms.
She was not an rmshockable blue-stocking;
If shades remain tihe characters they were,
No doubt she still considers you as shoeing.
20
Letter to Lord Byron
But tell Jane Austen, that is, if you dare.
How much her novels are beloved down here.
She wrote them for posterity, she said;
’Twas rash, hut by posterity she’s read.
You could not shock her more than she shocks me;
Beside her Joyce seems innocent as grass.
It makes me most uncomfortable to see
An English spinster of the middle-class
Describe the amorous effects of ‘brass’.
Reveal so frankly and with such sobriety
The economic basis of society.
So it is you who is to get this letter.
The experiment may not be a success.
There’re many others who could do it better.
But I shall not enjoy myself the less.
Shaw of the Air Force said that happiness
Comes in absorption: he was right, I know it;
Even in scribbling to a long-dead poet.
Every exciting letter has enclosures,
And so shall this — a bunch of photographs.
Some out of focus, some with wrong exposures.
Press cuttings, gossip, maps, statistics, graphs;
I don’t intend to do the thing by halves.
I’m going to be very up to date indeed.
It is a collage that you’re going to read.
I want a form that’s large enough to swim in.
And talk on any subject that I choose,
From natural scenery to men and women,
Myself, the arts, the European news:
And since she’s on a holiday, my Muse
Is out to please, find everything delightful
And only now and then be mildly spiteful.
21
Letter to Lord Byron
Ottava Rima wotild, I know, be proper,
The proper instrument on which to pay
My compliments, but I should come a cropp<^r;
Rhyme-royal’s diflictxlt enough to play.
But if no classics as in Chaucer’s day,
At least my modem pieces shall be cheery
Like English bishops on the Quantum Theory,
Light verse, poor girl, is under a sad weather;
Except by Milne and persons of that kind
She’s treated as d^mod^ altogether.
It’s strange and very unjust to my mind
Her brief appearances should be confined,
Apart from Belloc’s Cautionary Tales,
To the more bourgeois periodicals.
‘The fascination of what’s difficult,’
The wish to do what one’s not done before,
Is, I hope, proper to Quicunque Vult,
The proper card to show at Heaven’s door,
‘Gerettet’ not ‘Gerichtet’ be the I>aw,
Et cetera, et cetera. 0 curse.
That is the flattest line in English verse.
Parnassus after all is not a mountain,
Reserved for A.l, climbers such as you;
It’s got a park, it’s got a public fountain.
The most I ask is leave to share a pew
With Bradford or with Cottam, that will do:
To pasture my few silly sheep with Dyer
And picnic on the lower slopes with Prior.
A publisher’s an author’s greatest friend,
A generous uncle, or he ought to be.
(I’m sure we hope it pays him in the end.)
22
Letter to Lord Byron
I love my publishers and they love me,
At least they paid a very handsome fee
To send me here. I’ve never heard a grouse
Either from Russell Square or Random House.
But now I’ve got imcomfortable suspicions,
I’m going to put their patience out of joint.
Though it’s in keeping with the best traditions
For Travel Books to wander from the point
(There is no other rhyme except anoint),
They well may charge me with — I’ve no defences —
Obtaining money under false pretences.
I know I’ve not the least chance of survival
Beside the major travellers of the day.
I am no Lawrence who, on his arrival.
Sat down and typed out all he had to say;
I am not even Ernest Hemingway.
I shall not run to a two-bob edition.
So just won’t enter for the competition.
And even here the steps I flounder in
Were wom'by most distinguished boots of old.
Dasent and Morris and Lord Dufferin,
Hooker and men of that heroic mould
Welcome me icily into the fold;
I’m not like Peter Fleming an Etonian,
But, if I’m Judas, I’m an old Oxonian.
The Haig Thomases are at Myvatn now,
At Hvitavatn and at Vatnajokull
Cambridge research goes on, I don’t know how:
The shades of Asquith and of Auden Skiikull
Turn in their coflins a three-quarter circle
To see their son, upon whose help they rcHikoncd,
Being as frivolous as Charles the Second.
23
Letter to Lord Byron
So this, my opening chapter, has to stop
With humbly begging everybody’s pardon.
From Faber first in case the book’s a flop.
Then from the critics lest they should be hard on
The author when ho leads them up the garden.
Last from the general public he must beg
Permission now and then to pull their leg.
END OP PAST T
24
Chapter II
Journey to Iceland
A letter to Christopher Isherivood, Esq.
And the traveller hopes: ‘Let me be far from any
Physician’; And the ports have names for the sea;
The citdess, the corroding, the sorrow;
And North means to all: ‘RejectI’
And the great plains are for ever where the cold fish is
hunted,
And everywhere; the light birds flicker and flaunt;
Under the scolding flag the lover
Of islands may see at last,
Faintly, his limited hope; and ho nears the glitter
Of glaciers, the sterile immature mountains intense
In the abnormal day of this world, and a river’s
Fan-like polyp of sand.
Then let the good citizen here find natural marvels:
The horse-shoe ravine, the issue of steam from a cleft
In the rock, and rocks, and waterfalls brushing the
Rocks, and among the rocks birds.
And the student of prose and conduct, places to visit;
The site of a church where a bishop was put in a bag,
25
Journey to Iceland
The bath of a groat historian, the rock where
An outlaw dreaded the dark.
Reme m ber the doomed man thrown by his horse and
crying;
‘Beautiful is the hillside, I will not go’;
The old woman confessing; ‘He that I loved the
Best, to him I was worst’,
For Europe is absent. This is an island and therefore
Unreal. And the steadfast affections of its dead may be
bought
By those whose dreams accuse them of being
Spitefully alive, and the pale
From too much passion of kissing feci pure in its deserts.
Can they? For the world is, and the present, and the lie.
And the narrow bridge over the torrent.
And the small farm under the crag
Are the natural setting for the jealousies of a province;
And the weak vow of fidelity is formed by the cairn;
And within the indigenous figure on horseback
On the bridle path down by the lake
The blood moves also by crooked and furtive inches.
Asks all your questions: ‘Where is the homage? When
Shall justice be done? 0 who is against mo?
Why am I always alone?’
Present then the world to the world with its mendicant
shadow;
Let the suits be flash, the Minister of Commerce insane;
Let jazz be bestowed on the huts, and the beauty’s
Set cosmopolitan smile.
For our time has no favourite suburb; no local features
Are those of the young for whom all wish to care;
26
And tJie weak Vow of FiMily is formed liy llie Cairn
Journey to Iceland
The promise is only a promise, the fabulous
Country impartially far.
Tears fall in all the rivers. Again the driver
Pulls on his gloves and in a blinding snowstorm starts
Upon his deadly journey; and again the writer
* Runs howling to his art.
Dear Christopher,
Thank you for your letter. No, you were wrong. I did
not write: ‘the poits have names for the sea’ but ‘the poets
have names for the sea’. However, as so often before, the
mistake seems better than the original idea, so I’ll leave it.
Now, as to your questions:
1. ‘I can’t quite picture your arrival. What was your
impression of Reykjavik harbour? Is there any attempt to
make the visitor feel that he is arriving at a capital city?’
Not much. There is nothing by the pier but warehouses
and piles of agricultural implements under tarpaulin. Most
of the town is built of corrugated iron. When we arrived,
it was only half-past seven and we had to wait outside the
harbour, because the Icelandic deckhands won’t get up
early. The townn was hidden in low-lying noist, with the
tops of the mountains showing above it. My first impres-
sion of the town was Lutheran, drab and remote. The quay
was crowded with loungers, passively interested, in caps.
They seemed to have been there a long time. There were
no screaming hawkers or touts. Even the children didn’t
speak.
2. ‘What does R. look like?’
There is no good building stone. The new suburban
houses are built of concrete in sombre colours. The three
chief buildings are the Roman Catholic church, the (un-
finished) theatre and the students’ hostel, which looks like
27
Journey to Tceland
waiting-rooms of an airport. There is a sports ground, with
a rxmning-track and tennis courts, where th<i young men
play most of the night. In the middle of the town there is
a shallow artificial lake full of terns and wild duck. The
town peters out into flat rusty-brown lava-fields, scattered
shacks surrounded by wire-fencing, stockfish drying oigi
washing-lines and a few white hens. Further down the
coast, the lava is dotted with what look like huge laundry-
baskets; these are really compact heaps of drying fish
covered with tarpaulin. The weather changes with extra-
ordinary rapidity: one moment the ruin blots out every-
thing, the next, the sun is shining behind clouds, filling
the air with an intense luminoixs light in which yoxi can see
for miles, so that every detail of the cone-shaped moun-
tains stands out needle-sharp against an orange sky.
There is one peak which is always bright pink.
3. ‘What do the Icelandic authors write about?’
Mainly about their own country, the emotional lives of
the farmers and fishermen and their struggle with nature.
4. ‘I suppose the originals of the fiction-characters are
generally well-known?’
Yes, often. I sometimes heard comphimts; for example,
that Halldor Laxness makes the farmers more tiuplcusaut
than they really are. But, as far as I could gather, there
are no laws of libol.
5. ‘Isn’t the audience of the Icelandic novelist very
small?’
Relatively to the size of the population, it is larger thsm
in most countries. Most of the novels of any standing are
translated into G-erman and the other Scandinavian lan-
guages.
6. ‘Can he make a living?’
The hest-known authors and painters receive support
from the state, without any obligations as to output.
People (in all cases, right wing) occasionally complained
28
Journey to Iceland
to me that politics influenced the awards; but I couldn’t
discover any authors of merit who had been neglected.
7. ‘Tell me about the young Icelander, What does he
think about? What are his ambitions?’
As a race, I don’t think the Icelanders are very ambi-
tious. A few of the professional classes would like to get to
Emrope; most would prefer to stay where they are and
make a certain amount of money. Compared with most
countries, there is Httle unemployment in Iceland. My
general impression of the Icelander is that he is realistic,
in a petit bourgeois sort of way, unromantic and imidealis-
tic. Unlike the German, he shows no romantic longing for
the south, and I can’t picture him in a uniform. The atti-
tude to the sagas is like that of the average Englishman to
Shakespeare; but I only found one man, a painter, who
dared to say he thought they were ‘rather rough’. The
difficulty of getting any job at all in many European
countries tends to make the inhabitants irresponsible and
therefore ready for fanatical patriotism; but the Icelander
is seldom irresponsible, because irresponsibility in a farmer
or fisherman would mean ruin.
8. ‘What about the sex-life?’
Uninhibited. There is little stigma attached to illegiti-
macy. Bastards are brought up on an equal footing with
legitimate children of the family. Before communications
became better, there was a good deal of in-breeding. A
farmer was pointed out to me who had married his niece,
by special permission of the King of Denmark. Homo-
sexuality is said to he rare. There is a good deal of venereal
disease in the coastal towns, which has lately begun to
spread inland. I know nothing about birth-control pro-
paganda: there seems to be no particular drive to increase
the population of the island. Emigration to America,
which was common at the beginning of the century, has
now stopped.
29
Journey to Iceland
9. ‘Is there a typical kind of Icelandic humour?’
They are very fond of satirical lampoons. As you would
expect on a small island, most of the jokes are about pro-
minent personalities and difficult to understand without
inside knowledge. There is a weekly comic paper called the
Spegelin, which is more like SimpUcissimus than like
Punch. I saw no evidence of the kind of brutal practical
joke practised in the sagas.
10. ‘What feelings did your visit give yoii about life on
small islands?’
If you have no partictilar intellectual interests or ambi-
tions and are content with the company of your family
and friends, then life on Iceland must be very pleasant,
because the inhabitants are friendly, tolerant and sane.
They are genuinely proud of their country and its history,
but without the least trace of hysterical nationalism. I
always found that they welcomed criticism. But I had the
feeling, also, that for myself it was already too late. We arc
all too deeply involved with Europe to be able, or oven to
wish to escape. Though I am sure you would enjoy a visit
as much as I did, I think that, in the long run, the Scandi-
navian sanity would be too much for you, as it is for me.
The truth is, we are both only really happy living among
lunatics.
W.
30
Chapter III
Letter to Graham and Anne Shepard
R^kjavik.
August 16th, 1936.
TC) Graham and Anna: from the Arctic Gate
I send this letter to N.W. 8,
Hoping that Town is not the usual mess,
That Pauli is rid of worms, the new cook a success.
I have got here, you see, without being sick
On a boat of eight hundred tons to Reykjavik.
Came second-class— no air but many men;
Having seen the first-class crowd would do the same again.
Food was good, mutton and bits of fishes,
A smart line-up of Scandinavian dishes —
Beet, cheese, ham, j am, smoked salmon, gaffalbitar, ^
Sweet cucumber, German sausage, and Rye-Vita.
So I came here to the land the Romans missed.
Left for the Irish saint and the Viking colonist.
But what am I doing here? Qu’allais-je faire
Among these volcanic rocks and this grey air?
Why go north when Cyprus and Madeira
De jure if not de facto are much nearer?
The reason for hereness seems beyond conjecture,
There are no trees or trains or architecture,
Fruits and greens are insufficient for health
And culture is limited by lack of wealth,
31
Letter to Graham and Anno Shepard
The totirist sights have nothing like Stonehenge,
The literature is all about revenge.
And yet I like it if only because this nation
Enjoys a scarcity of population
And cannot rise to many bores or hacks
Or paupers or poor men paying Super-Tax,
Yet further, if you can stand it, I will sot forth
The obscure but powerful ethics of Going North.
Morris did it before, dropping the frills and fuss.
Harps and arbours, Tristram and Theseus,
For a land of rocks and sagas. And certain unknown
Old Irish hermits, holy skin and bone,
Camped on these crags in order to forget
Their blue-black cows in the Kerry pastures wet.
Those Latin-chattering margin-illuminating monks
Fled here from home without kit-bags or trunks
To mortify their flesh — ^but we must mortify
Our blowsy intellects before wo die,
Who feed our brains on backchat and self-pity
And always need a noise, the radio or the city.
Traffic and changing lights, crashing the amber,
Always on the move and so do not remember
The necessity of the silence of the islands.
The glacier floating in the distance out of existence.
The need to grip and grapple the adversary.
Knuckle on stony knuckle, to dot and carry
One and carry one and not give up the hunt
Till we have pinned the Boyg down to a point.
In England one forgets — ^in each performing troupe
Forgets what one has lost, there is no room to stoop
And look along the ground, one cannot see the ground
For the feet of the crowd, and the lost is never found.
I dropped something, I think, but I am not sure what
And cannot say if it mattered much or not,
So let us get on or we shall be late, for soon
32
Fifteenth -century Screen in 2ilus€um
Letter to Graham and Anne Shepard
The shops will close and the rush-hour be on.
This is the fret that makes us cat-like stretch
And then contract the fingers, gives the itch
To open the French window into the rain,
Walk out and never be seen at home again.
But where to go? No oracle for us,
iBible or Baedeker, can tell the terminus.
The songs of jazz have told us of a moon country
And we like to dream of a heat which is never sultry.
Melons to eat, champagne to drink, and a lazy
Music hour by hour depetalling the daisy.
Then Medici manuscripts have told of places
Where common sense was wedded to the graces,
Doric temples and olive-trees and such.
But broken marble no longer goes for much.
And there are some who scorn this po4sie de departs
And say ‘Escape by staying where you are;
A man is what he thinks he is and can
Find happiness within.’ How nice to be born a man.
The tourist in space or time, emotion or sensation.
Meets many guides but none have the proper orientation.
We are not changing ground to escape from facts
But rather to find them. This complex world exacts
Hard work of simplifying; to get its focus
You have to stand outside the crowd and caucus.
This all sounds somewhat priggish. You and I
Know very well the immediate reason why
I am in Iceland. Three months ago or so
Wystan said that he was planning to go
To Iceland to write a book and wotild I come too;
And I said yes, having nothing better to do.
But all the same we never make any choice
On such a merely mechanical stimulus.
The match is not the cause of fire, so pause
And look for the formal as well as the efl&cient cause.
33
c
Letter to Graham and Anne Shepard
Aristotle’s pedantic phraseology
Serves better than common sense or hand to mouth psycho-
logy.
‘Iax£ T^]V 90criv’ — ‘found its nature’; the crude
Embryo rummages every latitude
Looking for itself, its nature, its final pattern.
Till the fairy godmother’s wtind touches the slattern
And turns her to a princess for a moment
Beyond definition or professorial comment.
We find our nature daily or try to find it.
The old flame gutters, leaves red flames behind it.
An interval of tuning and screwing and tlnm
The symphony restarts, the creature lives again —
Blake’s arabesques of fire; the subtle creature
Swings on Ezekiel’s wheels, finding its nature.
In short we must keep moving to keep pace
Or else drop into Limbo, the dead place.
I have come north, gaily running away
From the grinding gears, the change from day to day.
The creaks of the familiar room, the smile
Of the cruel clock, the bills upon the file.
The excess of books and cushions, the high Injcls
That walk the street, the news, the newsboys’ yells.
The flag-days and the cripple’s flapping sleeve,
The ambushes of sex, the passion to retrieve
Significance from the river of passing people,
The attempt to climb the ever-climbing steeple
And no one knows what is at the top of it,
All is a raffle for caps which may not fit.
But all take tickets, keep moving; still we may
Move off from movement or change it for a day;
Here is a different rhythm, the juggled balls
Hang in the air— -the pause before the souffle falls.
Here we can take a breath, sit back, admire
Stills from the film of Ufe, the frozen fixe;
34
Letter to Graham and Anne Shepard
Among these rocks can roll upon the tongue
Morsels of thought, not jostled by the throng,
Or morsels of un-thought, which is still better,
(Thinking these days makes a suburban clatter).
Here we can practise forgetfulness without
A sense of guilt, fear of the tout and lout.
And here — ^but Wystan has butted in again
To say we must go out in the frightful rain
To see a man about a horse and so
I shall have to stop. For we soon intend to go
Around the LangjokuU, a ten days’ ride,
Gumboots and stockfish. Probably you’ll deride
This sissy onslaught on the open spaces.
I can see the joke myself; however the case is
Not to be altered, but please remember us
So high up here in this vertiginous
Crow’s-nest of the earth. Perhaps you’ll let us know
If anything happens in the world below?
L. M,
35
ChapUir IV
For Tourists
Passports, Custom, etc.
No passports arc roqtiirod for Iceland. There are duties
on moat of the cuatomary articles hut the cuatoms <ixumi-
nation on hoard is courteous and not vigorous.
Currency
Icelandic currency is reckoned in kronur and ore, 100 or©
to the kronur. The ofltcial rate of exchange in Icelund in
summer 1936 was 22.15 kr. to the pound. Ihit in Hull you
could get 24.50. It is better therefore not to change money
officially. Owing to the adverse trade, balance it is ex-
tremely difficult for individual Icelanders to get English
currency, and English people who have friends or acquain-
tances in Iceland will be doing them a great service if they
change their money with them.
Travellers’ cheques can of course be used, hut in my ex-
perience, it is wiser to take cash and change it as you want
it, so that you are not landed at the end of your visit with
a lot of Icelandic currency which is difficult to dispose of.
Clothes ajid Equipment
(1) The most essential article is a pair of stout pmboots,
but with smooth soles or they get caught in the stirrups.
36
For Tourists
Riding-boots will be ruined and will not keep you dry. At
least two pairs of socks should be worn inside the gum-
boots. A pair of walking shoes and a pair of slippers or
gym-shoes will complete the foot-gear.
(2) For riding, either riding-breeches or plus-fours let
down to the ankle.
(3) Oilskin trousers in one piece reaching to the waist.
(4) A long oilskin coat coming down well below the
knees. A cape is useless.
(5) An oilskin sou’-wester as well as any other head-gear.
(6) A pair of warm but flexible gloves.
(7) As far as general clothing is concerned, the danger is
of putting on too little rather than too much. On expedi-
tions I always wore flaimel trousers and pyjamas imder my
riding breeches, and two shirts and a golf-jacket and a coat
under my oilskiu. (So W.H.A. I did not wear nearly as
much as this. L. M.)
(8) For expeditions into the interior, a tent, of course, is
required. Make sure that your sleeping-bag is warm
enough. It is wise perhaps to take a compass, but the
mountains are sometimes magnetic and derange them.
Air-tight tins for perishable food should be taken, and
make siure that your stove is strong enough to stand up to
the jolting it will get on a pack horse. Mine fell to pieces.
In dry weather the lava dust can be very tiresome to the
eyes, and it is a good thing to take a pair of tinted glasses.
Finally, whether camping or not, a roll of toilet paper is
invaluable.
(9) Everyone has their pet medicines, but from personal
experience I would recommend cblorodyne as the best
stuff to take in cases of internal disorder. Before I went, I
heard a lot about mosquitoes, and went prepared. This is
unnecessary. There are, I believe, mosquitoes at Myvatn,
but elsewhere one need have no anxiety. In cases of emer-
gency there are reliable doctors and dentists.
37
For Tourists
Maps, etc.
The best general map of tlni whole iHhmd is Daniel
Bruun’s, which gives all rosnls and footpaths uml also
camping sites. The whole island is b(jiiig mapped in 8 sheets
on a scale of a little over four miles to tin*, inch. So far four
sheets have appeared: Sottth-We.sr., ]Vli<l-West, North-
West, and Mid-North. Tluue are also sp<H;i(d lurg<!r“scale
sheets of special areas, like Thingvellir tmd My vatu. All the,
inhabited part of the island is to b<! <lone on a scale of
1-100,000 but only some have app<«ir<!d. All tla;H<', maps
can be bought in Reykjavik. Tin; Ixwt guide book is Iceland
for Tourists by Stefan Stefansson.
Boats to Iceland
The Icelandic Steam Shipping Company run two boats,
the GuUfoss and the Bruarfoss, from lauth, ami two, the
Godafoss and the Dettifoss, from Hull. As far as the scseoml-
class accommodation goes, it is better on the Hull bonis
and best on the Dettifoss. Fare from Hull to anywhere in
Iceland, £4 10s. plus 5 kr. a day for food. The bitt<!r is
nothing to write home about but eatable, 'fhe voyag(?i
should last 4^ days, but delays in starting and on the way
are quite probable. In addition, of courst'., there are cruise
boats like the Danish Primula, with hrst-iduHS nccotnino-
dation only, which also call at the Faroes. Primula fare;
£8, plus 8s. a day for food. An alternative route, fur those
who like the sea, is to go to Bergen and take a Norwegian
boat from there, either the Lyra which goes to the Faroes
and Reykjavik, or the Nova which goes direct to Kskif jiir-
dur and then slowly northward round the coast to Reyk-
javik. During the season it is wise to book both the out-
ward and the return journey some time beforehand as
accommodation is limited.
The Icelandic boats go on from Reykjavik west and north
via Isaf jSrdur to Akureyxi and then back to Reykjavik.
38
For Tourists
R^kjavik
There is not much to be said for Reykjavik. The six
hotels are The Borg, The Island, The Skjalbreid, the Vik,
the Hekla, and the Studentagardur. The Borg is called a
first-class hotel but is not the kind of thing you like if you
Kke that kind of thing; stiU it is the only place where you
can get a drink. As far as rooms, price, and general comfort
go, unquestionably the best place to stay is the Studenta-
gardur, though I think the food there could be better.
Price 10 kr. a day inclusive (except for laundry) plus 10 %
for service. Single meals (lunch or dinner) cost from 2.50
kr. to 6 kr. There is a ca£6 in the Ausserstraeti where you
can get decent cream cakes. The Borg has a jazz band and
dancing every evening. There are two cinemas and two
quite decent bookshops. Arrangements for expeditions,
guides, horses, etc., are made through the Stat-Tourist
bureau near the harbour, but you should certainly visit
as well, Stefan Stefansson, c/o Landsbanki, who speaks ex-
cellent English and is a mine of information. In the museum
(open Wednesdays and Sundays) there is a remarkable
painting on wood of the Last Supper which is worth seeing^
and there is a collection of Icelandic paintings in the Parlia-
ment house. The Einar Jonsson museum is not for the
fastidious. The only other sights are OUi Maggadon at
the harbour, Oddur Sigurgeirsson anywhere, Kjarval the
painter, and Ami P^Usson the professor of Icelandic
history.
Board and Lodging
Nearly every farm will put you up, and though the stan-
dard of comfort of course varies, they will aU do their best
to make you comfortable. Prices from 4 to 6 kr. a day in-
clusive. In the N.W. it is a little cheaper. At a farm in the
Isafjdrdardjup, for example, I paid 10 kr. for three days
including riding. Single meals (lunch and dinner), 2 kr. In
39
i<'or Totirhls
the summer many of lh«i H<;hoolH in tiu; country arc turned
into hotels, e.g. Laugarvalu, Roykholt, Ilolar, Hallorasta.
dur. These arc generally eomfortahle with good food.
Prices from 10 kr. a day at Laugarvatn, the (ileueaglcH of
Iceland, to 5 kr. inclusive. At Laugarvatn and Heyhholt
there are hot baths. There are also ijins at Thingvellir and
Gcysir, and various other plaiies, which are inark<ul on the
4 miles to the inch maps. In the int<'rior ther<i arc several
saelihus or momitain Inits, whicli again vary greatly in
size and standard. These and euinping sites are marked
on Bruun’sj^map. With regard lt» th«! oliter towns iu'^sides
Reykjavik, there are three hoUds in Akureyri, the nitawt
of which is the Gullfoss. In Isafjurdur yon c,un slay at the
Salvation Army Hostel. lilHewln^re iiiflteidty and discoin*
fort is to he expectiul. 1 recommend any singh^ tonrist who
finds himself in Seydisfjordur to go to the <dd women’s
almshouses, where I was myself extr<imely eotnfi>rtahh^
Buses
There are excellent bus services to aU parts of the isluml,
except the North-West and the South-lOast, and the fares
are very reasonable. There are, for extimple, four buses a
week to Akureyri, a distance of about 300 kilonnares, tak-
ing two days if you go by bus all the way, and one day if
you take the motor ship Laxfoss to Borgarnes or Akrunes.
Single fare 30 kr. It is wise to book stsuts a day or tw<»
beforehand, and if staying on a bus route to telephone
through to a previous stop. Whore there are no ofUciuI
buses, there are often milk-cars which will take you very
slowly but cheaply. Those who are car-sick will have, I’m
afraid, a rough time, (The drivers are excellent.)
Horses and Guides
There are very few places in Iceland where it is pleasant
to walk, and for long expeditions guides are absolutely
40
For Tourists
necessary if you don’t want to lose your horses or get
drowned in a river. Besides, the farmers won’t lend their
horses without one. The price of a pony for a day varies
j&rom 3 kr. to 6 kr. in the fashionable places. The best
ponies come from Skargafjordur in the IJTorth. For long
jpumeys with a large party the price works out something
lifce this:
Riding pony, 4 kr. per day — 1 kr. for riding saddle 5 kr.
Pack pony, 3 kr. per day — 2 kr. for pack saddle 5 kr.
Spare ponies, 3 kr. per day each 3 kr.
1st Guide per day 15 kr.
2nd Guide per day 10 kr.
For a party of seven plus two guides we needed seventeen
horses, nine riding, five pack, and three spare.
I am told that some guides object to hobbling the horses
at night. Ours hobbled them, but another party which did
not take this precaution lost a whole day and one pony.
On some expeditions fodder has to be carried.
Language
It is not to be ext)ected that all the farmers will speak
English, but a great many do speak a little, and an English-
speaking guide can always be found, if you want one.
German is also useful. There is a phrase-book for those
who find that kmd of thing any use, and for the conscien-
tious there is Zoega’s English-Icelandic Dictionary (expen-
sive and full of non-existent English words), and Snae-
bjorn Jonsson’s Primer of Modern Icelandic.
Food.
In the larger hotels in Reykjavik you will of course get
ordinary European food, but in the farms you will only
get what there is, which is on the whole rather peculiar.
Breakfast: (9.0 a.m.). If you stay in a farm this will be
41
For Tourists
brought to you iu bed. Coffee, bread and cheese, and small
cakes. Coffee, which is drunk all through the day — I must
have drunk about 1,500 cups in three months — is generally
good. There is white bread, brown bread, rock-hard but
quite edible, and unleavened rye bread like cake. The
ordinary cheese is like a strong Dutch and good. There is
also a brown sweet cheese, like the Norwegian. I don’t like
cakes so I never ate any, but other people say they arc
good.
Lunch and Dinner: (12 noon and 7 p.m.). If you are
staying anywhere, lunch is the chief meal, but farmers are
always willing to give you a chief meal at any time of the
day or night that you care. (I once had supper at 11 p.m.)
Soups: Many of these are sweet and very unfortunate. I
remember three with particular horror, one of sweet milk
and hard macaroni, one tasting of hot marzipan, and one
of scented hair oil. (But there is a good sweet soup, rasp-
berry coloured, made of bilberry. L. M.)
Fish: Dried fish is a staple food iix Iceland. This should
be shredded with the fingers and eaten with butter. It
varies in toughness. The tougher kind tastes like toe-nails,
and the softer kind like the skin off th5 soles of one’s feet.
In districts where salmon are caught, or round the coast,
you get excellent fish, the grilled salmon particularly.
Meat: This is practically confined to mutton in various
forms. The Danes have influenced Icelandic cooking, and
to no advantage. Meat is liable to be served up in glutinous
and half-cold lumps, covered with tasteless gravy. At the
poorer farms you will only get Hdngikyrl, i.e. smoked
mutton. This is comparatively harmless when cold as it
only tastes like soot, but it would take a very hungry man
indeed to eat it hot.
V^etdbles: Apart fcom potatoes, these, in the earUer
part of the summer axe conspicuous by their absence.
Later, however, there axe radishes, turnips, carrots, and
42
For Tourists
lettuce in sweet milk. Newish potatoes begin to appear
about the end of August. Boiled potatoes are eaten with
melted butter, but beware of the browned potatoes, as they
are coated in sugar, another Danish barbarism.
Fruit: None, except rhubarb and in the late summer
excellent bilberries.
Cold F ood: Following the Scandinavian custom, in the
hotels, following the hot dish there are a number of dishes
of cold meats and fishes eaten with bread and butter. Most-
of these are good, particularly the pickled herring. Smoked
salmon in my opinion is an overrated dish, but it is com-
mon for those who appreciate it.
Sweets: The standard sweet is skyr, a cross between
Devonshire cream and a cream cheese, which is eaten with
sugar and cream. It is very filling but most people like it
very much. It is not advisable, however, to take coffee and
skyr together just before riding, as it gives you diarrhoea.
Tea: (4 p.m.). Coffee, cakes, and if you are lucky, pan-
cakes with cream. These are wafer-thick and extremely
good. Coffee and cake are also often brought you in the
evening, about 10 p.m. Those who like tea or cocoa should
bring it with them and supervise the making of it them-
selves.
Food for Expeditions
Bread, butter, cheese and coffee are safe to buy in Ice-
land. Those who can eat them will find the smoked mutton
and dried fish travel well. There is also an excellent tinned
and cooked mutton to be bought which is very useful. All
chocolate or sweets should be bought in England.
Drink
Apart from coffee and milk and water, there is little to
be said for the drink in Iceland, which is just recovering
from Prohibition. In Keykjavik you can get drinks at the
43
For Tourisls
Borg if you can pay lor them. A whinky aiul soda (Irish
whisky is unohtainahlo) costs 2.2J> kr.; ami a glass of
respectable sherry J.45 kr. There are also govennmiut
shops in various places wh(ire you can Imy hotthis fur-
tively over the counter. They c1oh< 5 at noon. A bottle of
brown sherry cost rnc 9.50 kr. and a bottle of Hpanish
brandy (the only brandy they had) 0.50 kr. The. beer is
weak and nasty, and the h'.monade unspeakabl<!.
• Illicit brandy can sonu^times be got, and is soimdimes
insistently offered by friendly farmers, but it is deatlly.
Oddities
For the curious there ar<! two Icelandic foods which
should certainly be tritwl. One is Hdkurl, which is half-dry,
half-rotten shark. This is white inside with a prickly horn
rind outside, as tough as an old boot. Owing to the stmdi it
has to be eaten out of doors. It is shaved off with a knife
and eaten with brandy. It tastes more like boot-polish
than anything else I can think of. The other is Heyngi.
This is tho tail of the whale, which is pickled in H<»ur milk
for a year or so. If you intend to try it, do not visit a whal-
ing station first. Incidentally, talking about pickling in
BOUT milk, tho Icelanders also do this to she-eps’ udders,
and tho result is surprisingly very nice.
Tobacco
There is a fairly wide range of choice both «>f cigarettes
and pipe tobaccos in Reykjavik, but in tho country no-
thing is obtainable but Commanders, an English cigarette
which seems to be manufactured solely for export to Ice-
land.
Photography
Agfa and Kodak films can be got in Reykjavik, and
sometimes in other towns, but it is not worth risking
44
For Tourists
getting them elsewhere. You can get films developed in
Reykjavik, but if you are particular about the results it
is better to bring them home. As a complete tyro, it is
presumptuous of me to give advice, but from my experi-
ence and that of others more competent than I, I think
that in Iceland, even if you are using a meter, there is a
tendency to over-expose.
Where to go
This of course depends on the individual. Those with
special tastes like fishing, ornithology, or geology will
know for themselves. Most tourists will presumably
want to see Thingvellir and Geysir, but they should
not miss Grylla, a small geyser in the South which
spouts every two hours. The hearty will want to go to
the interior, and a journey round the Langjokull is
probably as good as any. Time from 7 to 9 days. Inclusive
price for a largish party, a little over £12 a head. For the
tough there is Vatnajokull or Askja. For those who like
riding for its own sake, it is a little difficult to find large
stretches of open flat country. Perhaps the delta of the
Markaflot and the-Thorsd in the South is the best,
though they may find difficulty in getting really good
horses there. For those who want to stay quietly in one
place there are a number of places. Personally I should
reco mm end either Reykholt in the West or Egilsstadur or
Hallorastadur in the East.
If I had a forttught to spend myself I should go to the
North-West, as I think it both the most beautiful and the
least visited part of Iceland. You come to Isafjordur by
the Icelandic boats from Reykjavik, and move about
either by horses or motor-boat. Anyone who does think of
going there should get in touch with the British Vice-
consul at Isafjordur, Mr. Joachimsson, who is extremely
kind and efficient.
45
For Tourists
For Motorists
Those who regard motoring as a convenient means of
seeing places and not as an end in itself, and who like a
holiday off the beaten track, might do worse than turn
their attention towards Iceland. Thcrcs has been a great
deal of road-building since the war and from the map at
the end of this book it will be seen that most of the island,
except the north-west peninstda, the tract of glacier
rivers south-east of the Vatnajokull, and the desert in
the centre, can be now reached by car, and indeed along
most of the roads there arc already bus services. I travelled
about largely by bus and am convinced that it is one of
the best ways of seeing the country, though I should have
preferred being able to stop when and where I liked, and
the hire of private cars is very expensive. A road in Ice-
land, of course, is not always what one knows in England
by that name. The roads to Thingvellir and Laugarvatn,
those in Borgafirth, and indeed most of the road from
Borgames to Akureyri, are fairly good third-class English
roads.
The road from Husavik to Grimsstadur, on the other
hand, consists of two ruts, along which the maximum speed
is about 8 kilometres per hour, and the Thingvellir hill
on the Thingvellir-Laugarvatn road is barely negotiable.
Still cars do go along all these roads without mishap. I am
told that they very rarely break a back-axle as they caimot
go fast enough to do that, but that spare springs should
always be carried. The commonest cars in Iceland are
large American ones, mainly Chevrolets, but smaller-
powered cars if strongly built are quite adequate, as the
majority of the gradients, other than short dips over
streams, are less than you would expect in a moimtainous
coirntry. A high ground clearance is, however, essential.
On the better roads the wheel tracks are sunk in loose grit,
leaving a raised middle section for horses, and care is
46
For Tourists
needed at higher speeds to avoid skidding. AH bridges and
nearly all roads are single, and passing another car means
stopping.
The Icelanders are all sick in the buses, hut a driver told
me he had never known an Englishman to he. Practically
every farm will put tourists up, and, though of course the
accommodation is often limited and primitive, the farmers
make every effort to do their best for one. Cars can always
be left without anxiety as to their safety or the safety o£
things left in them, so that it is perfectly possible to com-
bine motoring expeditions with trips on horses to places
where motors cannot go. I had no personal experiences of
garages, but I am told that there are good ones in Reyk-
javik and Akureyri. Elsewhere, of course, the driver must
do his own repairs. It is unnecessary to carry spare petrol
as the maximum distance between pumps is 58 kilometres,
but running out of petrol means probably a long walk to
the next station and a long ride back. The petrol is B.P.
or Shell, price 32 ore per litre (about Is. 5d. a gallon).
The Icelandic Shipping Company is prepared to ship
cars from Hull or Leith. If there are five passengers, the
fifth travels free. If there are four, there is no extra charge
and so on. On arrival in Iceland, particulars about roads
and regulations can be obtained from the Stat-Tourist
bureau in Reykjavik, near the harbour. An international
driving licence is sufficient, and there is no car tax. Out-
side the towns there is no speed limit, but an average of
30 kilometres an hour is about as much as one can gener-
ally manage. Drive on the left.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
General Information
Icelandic Year-Book, Iceland, 1930.
Stefan Stefansson: Iceland for Tourists.
47
For Tourists
Language
Snaebjom Jonsson: A Primer of Modern Icelandic.
Zoega: Ensh-Islenzk Ordabok; Islenzk-Ensh Ordahok.
History and Literature
Knut Gjerset: History of Iceland,
W. P. Ker: Epic and Romance; The Dark Ages; Collected
Essays,
"Dame Philpot: Edda and Saga.
W* G. Craigie: The Icelandic Sagas,
Professor G, V. Gordon: An Introduction to Old Norse;
Romance in Iceland,
F. L, Lucas: Decline and Fall of the Romantic Tradition^
Travel
See Bibliography to Chapter VI.
48
Chapter V
Letter to Lord Byron
PART II
I’m writing this in pencil on my knee,
U sing my other hand to stop me yawning,
Upon a primitive, unsheltered quay
In the small hours of a Wednesday morning.
I cannot add the summer day is dawning;
In Seythisf jordmr every schoolboy knows
That daylight in the stunmer never goes.
To get to sleep in latitudes called upper
Is difficult at first for Englishmen.
It’s like being sent to bed before your supper
For playing darts with father’s foTmtain-pen,
Or like returning after orgies, when
Your breath’s like luggage and you realise
You’ve been more confidential than was wise.
I’ve done my duty, taken many notes
Upon the almost total lack of greenery,
The roads, the illegitimates, the goats;
To use a rhyme of yours, there’s handsome scenery
But little agricultural machinery;
And with the help of Sunlight Soap the Geysir
Affords to visitors le plus grand plaish.
Letter to Lord Byron
The North, though, never was your cup of tea;
‘Moral’ you thought it so you kept away.
And what I’m sure you’re wanting now from me
Is news about the England of the day.
What sort of things La Jeunesse do and say.
Is Brighton stiU as proud of her pavilion.
And is it safe for girls to travel pillion?
I’ll clear my throat and take a Rover’s breath
And skip a century of hope and sin —
For far too much has happened since your death.
Crying went out and the cold bath came in,
With drains, bananas, bicycles, and tin.
And Etttope saw from Ireland to Albania
The Gothic revival and the Railway Mania.
We’re entering now the Eotechnic Phase
Thanks to the Grid and all those new alloys;
That is, at least, what Lewis Mumford says.
A world of Aertex tmderwear for boys.
Huge plate-glass windows, walls absorbing noise,
Where the smoke nuisance is utterly abated
And all the furniture is chromium-plated.
Well, you might think so if you went to Surrey
And stayed for week-ends with the well to do,
Your car too fast, too personal your worry
To look too closely at the wheeling view.
But in the north it simply isn’t true.
To those who live in Warrington or Wigan,
It’s not a white He, it’s a whacking big ’un.
There on the old historic battlefield.
The cold ferocity of hiunan wills.
The scars of struggle are as yet unhealed;
Slattern the tenements on sombre hills.
And gaunt in valleys the square-windowed mills
50
Letter to Lord Byron
That, since the Georgian house, in my conjecture
Remain our finest native architecture.
On economic, health, or moral groimds
It hasn’t got the least excuse to show;
No more than chamber pots or otter hounds:
But let me say before it has to go.
It’s the most lovely coimtry that I know;
Clearer than ScafeU Pike, my heart has stamped on
The view from Birmingham to Wolverhampton.
Long, long ago, when I was only four.
Going towards my grandmother, the line
Passed through a coal-field. From the corridor
I watched it pass with envy, thought ^How fine!
Oh how I wish that situation mine.’
Tramlines and slagheaps, pieces of machinery.
That was, and still is, my ideal scenery.
Hail to the New World! Hail to those who’ll love
Its antiseptic objects, feel at home.
Lovers will gaze at an electric stove,
Another po6sie de depart come
Centred round bus-stops or the aerodrome.
But give me still, to stir imagination
The chiaroscuro of the railway station.
Preserve me from the Shape of Things to Be;
The high-grade posters at the public meeting.
The influence of Art on Industry,
The cinemas with perfect taste in seating;
Preserve me, above aU, from central heating.
It may be D. H. Lawrence hocus-pocus,
But I prefer a room that’s got a focus.
But you want facts, not sighs. I’ll do my best
To give a few; you can’t expect them all.
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Letter to Lord Byron
To start -witli, on the whole we’re better dressed;
For chic the diflference to«day is small
Of barmaid jfrom my lady at the Hall.
It’s sad to spoil this democratic vision
With millions suffering from malnutrition.
Again, our age is highly educated;
There is no lie our children cannot read,
. And as MacDonald might so well have stated
We’re growing up and up and up indeed.
Advertisements can teach us all we need;
And death is better, as the millions know.
Than dandruff, night-starvation, or B.O.
We’ve always had a penchant for field sports,
But what do you think has grown up in our towns ?
A passion for the open air and shorts;
The sun is one of our emotive norms.
Go down by chara’ to the Sussex Downs,
Watch the manoeuvres of the week-end hikers
Massed on parade with Kodaks or with Leicas.
These movements signify our age-long rule
Of insularity has lost its powers;
The cult of salads and the swi mmin g pool
Comes from a climate sunnier than ours.
And lands which never heard of licensed hours.
The south of England before veiy long
Will look no different from the Gontinong.
You lived and moved among the best society
And so could introduce your hero to it
Without the slightest tremor of anxiety;
Because he was your hero and you knew it.
He’d know instinctively what’s done, and do it.
He’d find our day more difficult than yours
For Industry has mixed the social drawers.
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Letter to Lord Byron
WeVe grown, you see, a lot more democratic.
And Fortune’s ladder is for all to climb;
Carnegie on this point was most emphatic,
A humble grandfather is not a crime.
At least, if father made enough in time I
To-day, thank God, we’ve got no snobbish feeling
Against the more efiBicient modes of stealing.
The porter at the Carlton is my brother,
He’ll wish me a good evening if I pay.
For tips and men are equal to each other,
I’m sure that Vogue would be the first to say
Que le Beau Monde is socialist to-day;
And many a bandit, not so gently bom
Kills vermin every winter with the Quom.
Adventurers, though, must take things as they find them
And look for pickings where the pickings are.
The drives of love and htmger are behind them.
They can’t afford to be particular:
And those who like good cooking and a car,
A certain kind of costume or of face.
Must seek them in a certain kind of place,
Don Juan was a mixer and no doubt
Would find this century as good as any
For getting hostesses to ask him out.
And mistresses that need not cost a penny.
Indeed our ways to waste time are so many.
Thanks to technology, a list of these
Would make a longer book than Ulysses.
Yes, in the smart set he would know his way
By second nature with no tips from me.
Tennis and Golf have come in since your day;
But those who are as good at games as he
Acquire the back-hand quite instinctively,
53
Letter to Lord Byron
Take to the steel-shaft and hole out in one,
Master the books of Ely Culbertson.
I see his face in every magazine.
‘Don Juan at lunch with one of Cochran’s ladies,’
‘Don Juan with his red setter May MacQueen.’
‘JDon Juan, who’s just been wintering in Cadiz,
Caught at the wheel of his maroon Mercedes.’
. ‘Don Juan at Croydon Aerodrome,’ ‘Don Juan
Snapped in the paddock with the Agha Khan,’
But if in highbrow circles he would sally
It’s just as well to warn him there’s no stain on
Picasso, aU-in-wrestling, or the Ballet.
Sibelius is the man. To get a pain on
Listening to Elgar is a sine qua non.
A second-hand acquaintance of Pareto’s
Ranks higher than an intimate of Plato’s.
The vogue for Black Mass and the cult of devils
Has sunk. The Good, the Beautiful, the True
Still fluctuate about the lower levels.
Joyces are firm and there there's nothing new.
Eliots have hardened just a point or two.
Hopkins are brisk, thanks to some recent boosts.
There’s been some further weakening in Prousts.
I’m saying this to tell you who’s the rage,
And not to loose a sneer from my interior.
Because there’s snobbery in every age,
Because some names are loved by the superior,
It does not follow they’re the least inferior:
For all I know the Beatific Vision’s
On view at all Surrealist Exhibitions.
Now for the spirit of the people. Here
I know I’m treading on more dangerous ground;
54
Letter to Lord Byron
I know they’re many changes in the air.
But know my data too slight to be sound.
I know, too, I’m inviting the renowned
Retort of all who love the Status Quo:
^You can’t change human nature, don’t you know!’
We’ve still, it’s true, the same shape and appearance,
We haven’t changed the way that hissing’s done;
The average man still hates all interference,
Is just as proud still of his new-born son:
Still, like a hen, he likes his private nm,
Scratches for seK-esteem, and slyly pecks
A good deal in the neighbourhood of sex.
But he’s another man in many ways:
Ask the cartoonist first, for he knows best.
Where is the John Bull of the good old days.
The swaggering bully with the clumsy j est ?
His meaty neck has long been laid to rest,
His acres of self-confidence for sale;
He passed away at Ypres and Passchendaele.
Turn to the work of Disney or of Strube;
There stands our hero in his threadbare seams;
The bowler hat who straphangs in the tube.
And kicks the tyrant only in his dreams.
Trading on pathos, dreading all extremes;
The Httle Mickey with the hidden grudge;
Which is the better, I leave you to judge.
Begot on Hire-Purchase by Insurance,
Forms at his christening worshipped and adored;
A season ticket schooled him in endurance,
A tax collector and a waterboard
Admonished him. In boyhood he was awed
By a matric, and complex apparatuses
Keep his heart conscious of Divine Afflatuses.
55
Letter to Lord Byron
‘I am like you’, he says, ‘and you, and you,
I love my life, I love the home-fires, have
To keep them burning. Heroes never do.
Heroes are sent by ogres to the grave.
I may not be courageous, but I save.
I am the one who somehow turns the comer,
I may perhaps be fortunate Jack Homer.
I am the ogre’s private secretary;
I’ve felt his stature and his powers, learned
To give his ogreship the raspberry
Only when his gigantic back is tiimed.
One day, who knows. I’ll do as I have yearned.
The short man, all his fingers on the door.
With repartee shall send him to the floor.’
One day, which day? 0 any other day.
But not to-day. The ogre knows his man.
To kill the ogre that would take away
The fear in which his happy dreams began.
And with his life he’ll guard dreams while he can.
Those who would really kill his dream’s contentment
He hates with real implacable resentment.
He dreads the ogre, but he dreads yet more
Those who conceivably might set him free.
Those the cartoonist has no time to draw.
Without his bondage he’d be aU at sea;
The ogre need but shout ‘Security’,
To make this man, so loveable, so nuld.
As madly crael as a frightened child.
Byron, thou should’st be living at this hour!
What would you do, I wonder, if you were ?
Britannia’s lost prestige and cash and power.
Her middle classes show some wear and tear.
We’ve learned to bomb each other from the air;
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Letter to Lord Byron
I can’t imagine what the Duke of Wellington
Would say about the music of Duke Ellington,
Suggestions have been made that the Teutonic
Fuhrer-Prinzip would have appealed to you
As being the true heir to the Byronic —
In keeping with your social status too
(It has its English converts, fit and few).
That you would, hearing honest Oswald’s call,
Be gleichgeschaltet in the Albert Hall.
^Lord Byron at the head of his storm-troopers!’
Nothing, says science, is impossible:
The Pope may quit to join the Oxford Groupers,
Nuffield may leave one farthing in his Will,
There may be someone who trusts Baldwin still.
Someone may think that Empire wines are nice.
There may be people who hear Tauber twice.
You liked to be the centre of attention,
The gay Prince Charming of the fairy story.
Who tamed the Dragon by his intervention.
In modern warfare though it’s just as gory.
There isn’t any individual glory;
The Prince must be anonymous, observant,
A kind of lab-boy, or a civil servant.
You never were an Isolationist;
Injustice you had always hatred for.
And we can hardly blame you, if you missed
Injustice just outside your lordship’s door:
Nearer than Greece were cotton and the poor.
To-day you might have seen them, might indeed
Have walked in the United Front with Gide,
Against the ogre, dragon, what you will;
His many shapes and names aU turn us pale,
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Letter to Lord Byron
For he’s immortal, and to-day he still
Swinges the horror of his scaly tail. '
Sometimes he seems to sleep, but will not fail
In every age to rear up to defend
Each dying force of history to the end.
Milton beheld him on the English throne.
And Bunyan sitting in the Papal chair;
The hermits fought him in their caves alone.
At the first Empire he was also there.
Dangling his Pax Romana in the air:
He comes in dreams at puberty to man.
To scare him back to childhood if he can.
Banker or landlord, booking-clerk or Pope,
Whenever he’s lost faith in choice and thought,
When a man sees the futmre without hope.
Whenever he endorses Hobbes’ report
‘The life of man is nasty, brutish, short’,
The dragon rises from his garden border
And promises to set up law and order.
He that in Athens murdered Socrates,
And Plato then seduced, prepares to make
A desolation and to call it peace
To-day for dying magnates, for the sake
Of generals who can scarcely keep awake,
And for that doughy mass in great and small
That doesn’t want to stir itself at all.
Forgive me for inflictiag all this on you.
For asking you to hold the baby for us;
It’s easy to forget that where you’ve gone, you
May only want to chat with Set and Horus,
Bored to extinction with our earthly chorus:
Perhaps it sounds to you like a trunk-call.
Urgent, it seems, but quite inaudible.
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Letter to Lord Byron
Yet though the choice of what is to be done
Remains with the alive, the rigid nation
Is supple still within the breathing one;
Its sentinels yet keep their sleepless station.
And every man in every generation.
Tossing in his dilemma on his bed.
Cries to the shadows of the noble dead.
We’re out at sea now, and I wish we weren’t;
The sea is rough, I don’t care if it’s blue;
I’d like to have a quick one, but I daren’t.
And I must interrupt this screed to you.
For I’ve some other little jobs to do;
I must write home or mother will be vexed.
So this must be continued in our next.
END OF PART II
59
Chapter VI
Sheaves from Sagaland
An Anthology of Icelandic Travel addressed
to John Betjeman, Esq.
PART I.— THE COUNTRY
Iceland is real
Iceland is not a myth; it is a solid portion of the earth’s
surface.’ — ^Pliny Miles.
IFhere is Iceland?
‘I made several observations with an excellent Paris
Quadrant, and ascertained the elevation of the pole by
means of a lunar eclipse which happened in December,
1750. By a telescope accurately furnished with a micro-
meter, I took the exact latitude of the island, and having
determined it in a nicer manner than it ever was before,
found that Iceland lies almost four degrees more to the
east than it has hitherto been computed.’ — Horrebow.
What does Iceland hoh like?
‘The map of Iceland has been sometimes drawn by
schoolboys as an eider duck, qpiacking with wide-opened
beak.’ — Gollingwood.
Impressions of a Viking
‘To that place of fish may I never come in my old age.’
— ^Ketil Flatnose.
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Impressions of a Poet
‘A gallows of slush.’ — Tenth Century Scald.
Impressions of the Middle Ages
^To speak of Iceland is little need;
Save of stockfish.’ — Hakluyt.
Impressions of an Archbishop
*0n our arrival in Iceland we directly saw a prospect be-
fore us which, though not pleasing, was uncommon and
surprising, and our eyes, accustomed to behold the pleas-
ing coasts of England, now saw nothing but the vestiges
of the operation of a fire, Heaven knows how ancient.’
— an Trod.
Iceland is German
‘Fiir uns Island ist das Land.’ — An unknown Nazi.
Concerning the Scenery
‘Alone in Iceland you are alone indeed and the home-
less, tmdisturbed wilderness gives something of its awful
calm to the spirit. It was Hke listening to noble music, yet
perplexed and diflSicult to foUow. If the Italian landscape
is like Mozart; if in Switzerland the siiblimity and sweet-
ness correspond in art to Beethoven; then we may take
Iceland as the type of nature of the music of the modems
— say Schumann at his oddest and wildest.’ — ^Miss Oswald.
Concerning the Mountains
‘This author says that the mountains are nothing but
sand and stone.’ — Horrebow.
Concerning the uses of Volcanoes
‘Surely were it possible for those thoughtless and in-
sensible beings whose minds seem impervious to every
finer feeling to be suddenly transported to this burning
region and placed within view of the tremendous opera-
tions of the vomiting pool, the sight could not but arouse
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them from their lethargic stupor, and by superinducing
habits of serious reflection might be attended with the
happiest consequences, both to themselves and all within
the sphere of their influence.’ — Henderson.
Concerning the Vegetation
‘Nowhere a single tree appears which might afford shel-
ter to friendship and innocence.’ — ^Van Trofl.
Concerning the Climate
‘Those who gave an account that it was so hot that they
were obliged to go almost naked, had that day, I suppose,
great quantities of fish to weigh out, and send aboard their
respective ships.’ — Horrebow.
Concerning the Wild Life
‘It is commonly reported that the noise and bellowing of
these seahuUs and seacows makes the cows ashore run
mad. But none here ever saw any of these supposed
animals, or noticed the bad effects of their bellowing.’
—Ibid.
Concerning the Insect Life
‘McKenzie formd a cocciuella near the Geysir: and
Madame Ida Pfeiffer secured two wild bees which she
carried off in spirits of wine.’ — Burton.
Concerning the Capital
‘Reykjavik is, unquestionably, the worst place in which
to spend the winter in Iceland. The tone of society is the
lowest that can well be imagined. ... It not only presents
a lamentable blank to the view of the religious observer,
but is totally devoid of every source of intellectual grati-
fication.’ — ^Henderson.
The Immortal Bard proves that nothing escapes him
‘Pish for thee, Iceland dog. Thou prick-eared cur of Ice-
land.’ — Shakespeare: Henry IV.
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S/ieapes from Sagaland
PART II. THE NATIVES
The Icelanders are human
‘^They are not so robust and hardy that nothing can hurt
them; for they are human beings and experience the sensa-
tions common to mankind.’ — Horrebow.
Concerning their hair
^The hair which belongs to the class Lissotriches, sub-
division Euplokamo, seldom shows the darker shades of
brown. The colour ranges from carroty red to turnip yel-
low, from barley-sugar to the blond-cendre so expensive
in the civilised markets. We find all the gradations of
Parisian art here natural; the corn golden, the blonde frd-
vide, the incandescent (carroty), the florescent or sulphur-
hued, the beurre frais, the fulvastre or lion’s mane, and the
rubide or mahogany, Raphael’s favourite tint.’ — Burton.
Concerning their eyes
‘A very characteristic feature of the race is the eye, dure
and cold as a pebble — ^the mesmerist would despair at the
first sight.’ — Ibid,
Concerning their mouths
‘The oral region is often coarse and unpleasant.’ — Ibid,
Concerning their temperament
‘The Icdander’s temperament is nervoso-lymphatic and
at best nervoso-sanguineous.’ — Ibid.
Concerning their appearance
‘The Icelanders are of a good, honest disposition, but
they are at the same time so serious and sullen that I
hardly remember to have seen any of them laugh.’ — V an
Trod.
Concerning their character
‘This poor but highly respectable people.’ — ^McKenzie.
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Concerning their sensibility
‘The Icelanders in general are civil and 'vveU-disposed,
but they are said not to feel strongly.’ — ^Barrow.
No nonsense about the Icelanders
‘Practical men in Iceland vigorously deny the existence
of the Gulf Stream.’ — Burton.
Disadvantages of the North Pole
■ ‘It is possible the Icelanders are not now as barbarous
as formerly though it may rationally be supposed that a
nation living so near the North Pole may not be so re-
fined and polished as some others, especially among the
vulgar sort, for people of fashion ought to be exempted
from this rule (less or more) in most places.’ — ^Tremarec.
Concerning their courage
‘They are far from being a dastardly race as some
authors have represented them; for it is well-known that
they made some figure in a military life, and have been
raised to the command of a fortress.’ — Horrebow.
Concerning their morals
‘ “Happy the nations of the moral North” wrote Byron
some years since. Without imagining that they are worse
than their neighbours I fancy it is very much like the ideal
morality of the so-termed middle-classes, which has been
of late so ruthlessly shattered by Sir CressweU Cresswell.’
— ^Forbes.
Concerning their food
‘It cannot afford any great pleasure to examine the
manner in which the Icelanders prepare their food.’ — ^Van
Troil.
Concerning their butter
‘Their butter looks very wdl and I could have ate it for
the looks, if my nose did not tell me that it could jaot taste
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Mount Hekla from Odde
Sheaves from Sagaland
well. Mr. Anderson says their butter looks green, black and
of all colours/ — Horrebow.
Concerning Hdkarl
‘This had so disagreeable a taste that the small quantity
we took of it drove us from the table long before our
intention/ — Y an Troil,
Eat more fish
‘Ichthyophagy and idleness must do much to counter-
balance the sun-clad power of chastity/ — Burton.
Concerning their habits
‘If I attempted to describe some of their nauseous
habits, I might fill volumes/ — Pfeiffer.
A young lady^s opinion
‘The Icelanders have no idea of out-of-doors amenity/
— ^Miss Oswald.
Concerning their dress
‘The dress of the women is not calculated to show the
person to advantage.’ — ^McKenzie.
Concerning their baths
‘The inhabitants do not bathe in them here merely for
their health, but they are likewise the occasion for a scene
of gallantry. Poverty prevents here the lover from making
presents to his fair one, and Nature presents no flowers of
which elsewhere garlands are made: ’tis therefore custo-
mary that instead of all this the swain perfectly cleanses
one of these baths which is afterwards honoured by the
visit of his bride.’ — an Troil.
Concerning their kissing
‘I have sometimes fancied, when they took their faces
apart, that I could hear a slight clicking sound; but this
might be imagination.’ — Howell.
E 65
Sheaves from Sagaland
Concerning their laundry
‘They wash their things tolerably well, though I must
suppose, not to the liking of all persons.’ — Horrebow.
Concerning their music
T heard a voice in the farm singing an Icelandic song.
At a distance it resembled the humming of bees.’ — Pfeiffer.
Concerning their dancing
' ‘They have no idea of dancing, though sometimes the
merchants at the factories for their diversion will get a
fiddle and make them dance, in which they succeed no
better than by hopping and jumping about.’ — Horrebow.
Concerning their sculpture
‘Thorwaldson, the son of an Icelander, dwelling on the
classic ground of Rome, is at the present moment second
only to Canova among the statuaries of Europe.’ —
McKenzie,
Concerning their chessmen
‘There is not a peasant in the country but what has a set,
which they make out of fishbones. The whole difference
betwixt theirs and ours being that our fools stand for their
bishops because they say the clergyman ought to be near
the King’s person. Their rooks represent little captains
whom the Icelandic scholars call their Centuriones. They
are represented with swords at their sides, with bloated
cheeks, as if they were blowing the horns they hold in both
their hands.’ — ^Tremarec.
Good news for the Geography Mistress
‘The search for this useful lichen forms the annual holi-
day of Icelandic girlhood.’ — Howell.
Bad news for the Watch Committee
‘The Elder Edda may be searched through and through
and there will not be found a single nude myth, not an
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Sheaves from Sagaland
impersonation of any kind that can he considered an out-
rage upon virtue or a violation of the laws of propriety,’
— ^Anderson.
Concerning their literary criticism
*In all departments of literature, there is a strong dis-
position among the Icelanders to critical severity. A
curious instance of this kind occurred about a hundred
years ago when an unfortunate man was publicly whipped
as a punishment for the errors he had committed in a
translation of the book of Genesis.’ — ^McKenzie.
Concerning their lack of education
‘It is not uncommon in Iceland for people of all ra nks ,
ages and sexes to sleep in the same apartment. Their no-
tions of decency are unavoidably not very refined; but we
had sufficient proof that the instances of this which we
witnessed proceeded from ignorance, and expressed no-
thing but perfect innocence.’ — Ibid.
Concerning their high-grade living
‘Publications connected with practical morality are very
common in Iceland, and several excellent books of this kind
have lately appeared in the island, adapted chiefly to the use
of farmers or those of the middle-classes; in which moral
instruction is judiciously blended with amusing informa-
tion in various branches of knowledge. The most valuable
of these writings is a work called Evening Hours. ^ — Ibid.
Concerning their religion
‘The influence of the Lutheran Church is practically
universal, the Nonconformists of the island numbering
probably but one or two of the Brethren, and a single
Swedenborgian.’ — Howell.
Plato in the North
‘Some of the clergy of the new school, instead of drawing
the matter of their sermons from the Scriptures, gather it
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Sheaves from Sagaland
from the "WTitings of heathen philosophers, and the mor-
ality found in these authors, which at the best is but dry
and insipid, absolutely freezes when transported to Ice-
land.’ — Henderson.
The Scarlet Woman in Iceland
‘An American organ leads the singing, which is slow but
none the less devotional, and thoroughly Gongregationad.
A gaudy red and yellow robe which the pastor wears
during a portion of the liturgy is evidently a survival of
the Romanist days. His black gown and white ruflf are less
obtrusive and more in keeping with a Christian service.’
— Howell.
Concerning their behaviour in Church
‘Most of the congregation sat with their faces turned
towards the altar, but the rule had its exceptions.’ —
Pfeiflfer.
Concerning the literary taste of the Clergy
‘Assessor Grondal also composed several poetical satires
in which, according to the information of the Bishop, there
is much successful ridictde.’ — ^McKenzie.
Concerning the isolation of real Christians in Iceland
‘The greater number of these individuals are, in all pro-
bability, known only to God, having little intercourse with
each other, and the situation may, not rmfttly, be com-
pared to that of the generality of real Christians in Scot-
land about thirty or forty years ago.’ — Henderson.
A Problem for Missionaries
‘A church was built in 984 by Thorvald Bodvarter and
some persons received baptism, but others, though they
had no objection to the Christian religion, could not be
prevailed upon to suffer themselves to be baptised, as they
pretended it would be indecent to go naked into the
water, like little boys.’ — Y an Troil.
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Sheaves from Sagaland
A use for Icelandic women
^As wives they would be efficient correctives to the fine
drawn framework and the over-nervous diathesis of
southern nations.’ — ^Burton.
Tiddley om pom pom
‘Die geistige Aufgeschlossenheit und rasche A ufn a h me-
fahigkeit der Islandischen Frau hat in der Stadt in den
letzen zehn Jahren einer Typus hervorgebracht, der die,
Eleganz imd das kiinstliche Modespiel der Stadtischen
Festlanderinnen noch zu uberbieten trachtet. Das aUes
verfleucht jedoch wie ein diinner Spuk, wenn eine Islan-
dische Frau einher schreitet in der Koniglichen Festtracht
ihres Landes und in Gewand und Haltung einer einzigen
solchen Gestalt Tausendjahriges Islandertum in seiner
menschlichen Starke enthullt.’ — ^Prinz.
The longest word in Icelandic
Haestarjettarmalaflutunesmanskifstofastulkonutidyra-
lykfll — a latch-key belonging to a girl working in the office
of a barrister.
PART III. — THE TOURIST
Iceland is safe
‘An eruption very seldom happens, and even when it
does, it occupies but a small tract of time. Travellers can-
not therefore be much obstructed by it.’ — ^Horrebow.
Reassurance to Girl Guides
‘What! says someone, can ladies travel in Iceland? Cer-
tainly, as witness the expeditions of Miss Oswald and Miss
Adelia Gates.’ — Howell.
A warning
‘To be well received here it is necessary either to be rich
or else to travel as a naturalist.’ — Pfeiffer.
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Sheaves from Sagaland
Why go there? A reason
‘Well, Rector, you are partly right. I do like getting out
of the regions of respectability — pardon me — once in a
way. Hard fare, too, for a time is a fine alternative. Persi-
cos odi apparatus.’ — ^Metcalfe.
Another reason
‘The traveller enjoys for himself the most absolute im-
.munity; he may he offered a seat in the Cabinet, or accused
of forgery, or portrayed in Vanity Fair, — ^he wfil know no-
thing about it till his return.’ — ^Viscotmt Bryce.
The Voyage Out. A cautious simile
‘Whales ahead — ^their spoky back fins revolving close
after each other in regular succession like the wheel of the
Great Eastern, if it has one.’ — ^Metcalfe.
First sight of Iceland
‘So I have seen Iceland at last. I awoke from a dream of
the Grange, which, by the way, was like some house at
Queen’s Gate.’ — ^WiUiam Morris.
Ditto
‘We were delighted at seeing some new faces, in spite of
their nastiness and stench; and their grotesque appearance
afforded us much amtusement.’ — Hooker.
Character of a traveller
‘Next I will introduce Mr. Darwin, a really celebrated
personage. He had written a learned book on Northern
Antiquities in recompense of which a Scandinavian poten-
tate created him a Eodght of the second class of the Order
of the Walrus, the riband of which illustrious Order was
suspended across his brawny shoulders.’ — ^Umbra.
Character of a light Hue
*A man taking delight in museums and houses of assem-
bly, given to chemistry and the variations of European
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Sheaves from Sagaland
politics, fond of statistics and well instructed in stuffed
vermin.’ — ^Anthony Trollope.
I was at B.N,C>
Tt is very hard for a European, and perhaps especially
hard for a graduate of one of the older EngUsh Universities
to appreciate the squalid culture of these northern peoples.’
— Anuandale.
A French humanitarian
‘‘Que les agranomes et les membres du club des Jockeys
vantent les belles races de merinos et les families pur sang
de chevaux anglais. Pour moi dusse-je faire vivre ceux qm
n’ait jamais compati aux souffrances des animaux,
j’avouerai que, dans mes excursions en Islande, j’ai sou-
vent presse entre mes mains, avec attendrissement, la tSte
de mon cheval.’ — ^Marmier.
An unfavourable comparison
^The French author gives a life-like sketch of the differ-
ence between the sailors who man these ships. The French-
man, working for the owner, landing at times, listless, idle,
with a pocket as lean as his poor cadaverous face, hope-
less, miserable to a degree. The Yankee, paddling his own
canoe, pocketing all the gains, dashing ashore in his
civilian dress, and flinging his dollars everywhere, drink-
ing, roystering, catching the ponies, and scampering off,
frightening the Icelander out of his wits.’ — Howell.
Mr.X.
T discovered a curious fact about Mr. X. which ac-
counted for that gentleman’s occasional readiness in mak-
ing a quotation. Every night he wrapped himself in a large
grey plaid of which he was very proud; it had been, he said,
his companion in the moimtains of Mexico. I now hap-
pened to examine some scarlet letters on the plaid and, to
my amazement, discovered whole passages from Shake-
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speare and other poets embroidered in red silk. In fact
Mr. X. slept in a book and could always refresh his memory
by studying when he woke.’ — Umbra.
A poet's athletic feat
‘Had that celebrated Pope whose Christian name was
Alexander believed that his immortal essay would have
been translated into Icelandic verse, by a native Icelander,
he would not have vaulted clear over the volcanic isle.’
—Miles.
Influence of the Gothic revival
‘There was not one in our company who did not wish to
have his clothes a little singed for the sake of seeing Hekla
in a blaze.’ — Y an Troil.
An inarticulate Wordsworthian
‘I wish it were in my power. Sir, to give you such a de-
scription of this place as it deserves, but I fear mine will
always remain inferior in point of expression. So much is
certain, at least. Nature never drew from anyone a more
cheerful homage to her Great Creator than I here paid
mm.:— Ibid.
Trials of a geologist
‘Some of the pieces I handed to Ami to carry, who took
them very reluctantly; the bulk, however, were by degrees
thrown away, each succeeding rest seeing one or more of
the specimens abandoned which at the rest preceding I had
determined to preserve; greatly to the amusement of H.,
who is not disposed to subject himself to the least incon-
venience for the cause of science.’ — ^W. G. Locke.
Tricds of an author
‘For a few minutes they remained quiet; then they be-
gan to whisper one to another, “She writes. She writes.” ’
— ^Pfeiffm.
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A fast Victorian
^There was no alternative; I must either turn back or
moimt as a man. Keeping my brother at my side, and bid-
ding the rest ride forward, I made him shorten the stirrups
and hold the saddle, and after sundry attempts succeeded
in landing myself man fashion on the animal’s back. The
position felt very odd at first, and I was also somewhat un-
comfortable at my attitude, but on Vaughan’s assuring
me there was no cause for my imeasiness, and arranging
my dress so that it fell in folds on either side, I decided to
give the experiment a fair trial. Perhaps my boldness may
rather surprise my readers.’ — ^Mrs. Alice Tweedie.
Acumen of a religious observer
‘Having gained some knowledge of the Icelandic before-
hand, I could easily collect the scope and substance of his
discourse, and, from its general tenor, do not hesitate to
pronounce it strictly Evangelical.’ — Henderson.
Inability of a Bishop to draw the line
‘Here we saw the bishop himself countenancing vice in
its worst shape, and appearing perfectly familiar with per-
sons who, he must have known, bore the worst characters.’
— ^McKenzie.
Privations of a traveller
‘As long as I remained in Iceland I was compelled to
give up my German system of diet.’ — ^Pfeiffer.
An exchange of courtesies
‘I plucked a flower, and speedily they brought a bunch.
I touched a stone and half a dozen were at once forth-
coming. However, I let them see that this was quite
unnecessary.’ — ^Howell.
The translator of the Arabian Nights gets the raspberry
‘Among the gentler sex a soft look is imcommonly
rare, and the aspect ranges from a stony stare to a
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sharp glance rendered fiercer by the habitual frown.’ —
Burton.
A psychological observation
‘A certain feeling of discomfort always attached to the
fact of sleeping in a chtirch alone in the midst of a grave-
yard.’ — ^Pfeiffer.
Curious behaviour of a Scotch baronet
. ‘We instantly left omr guides and the horses to manage
matters as they could; and rushing over slags, lava, and
mud, fell upon the snow like wild beasts upon their prey.
My enjoyment was excessive; and the very recollection of
it is so gratifying that I must be excused for recording a
circumstance of so little importance.’ — ^McKenzie.
Art without malice
‘The clergyman had a large family and McDiarmed
good-natmredly took a blooming little maiden of six or
seven years a ride on his pony; while Lord Lodbrog drew a
very accurate sketch of his home and church. It was really
very well done and when pinned up against the wall of the
sitting-room had a smart appearance.’ — ^Umbra.
Hear, Hear!
‘Let’s go home. We can’t camp in this beastly place.
— What is he saying?
— I’m not going to camp here.
— You must. All Englishmen do.
— Blast all Englishmen.’ — ^William Morris.
Moral drawn from a Geysir
‘While the jets were rushing up towards Heaven with
the velocity of an arrow my mind was forcibly borne along
with them to the contemplation of the Great and Omni-
potent Jehovah in comparison with whom these and all
the wondears scattered over the whole immensity of exist-
ence dwindle into absolute insignificance; whose almighty
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commands spake the universe into being; and at v^hose
sovereign fiat the whole fabric might be reduced, in an
instant, to its original nothing.’ — Henderson.
Rudeness shown to the same Gey sir
‘^Darwin profanely called the Geysir an old brute.’ —
Umbra.
Spread of Nazi Doctrines among the Icelandic ponies
‘Famous scientists, doctors, politicians, and writers;
mounted her and rode for a wonderful week’s tour. Richer
in experience, strengthened and refreshed by Nature,
ready for a new struggle with the arch-fiend culture, they
went home and gave lectures.’ — Fleuron.
PART IV. — HOME AGAIN
Liar: or Miles on Pfeiffer
‘Where she does not knowingly tell direct falsehoods,
the guesses she makes about those regions that she does
not visit — ^while stating that she does — show her to be bad
at guesswork.’ — ^Miles.
Cissy: or Locke on Locke
‘What a vacillating set! I woidd have gone on alone had
I been of the party; and therefore it is pleasing to be able
to disclaim relationship with one so wanting in firmness of
purpose as the author of the Home of the Eddas appears
to be from this and other incidents.’ — ^W. G. Locke.
THE 1809 REVOLUTION
(Mainly from Hooker and Mackenzie)
In the year 1808, when Great Britain was at war with
Denmark, an eminent and honourable merchant of Lon-
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don, Mr, Samuel Phelps, learned from a young Dane of
twenty-seven, Mr. Jorgen Jorgensen, that there was a
large quantity of goods, chiefly tallow, for sale in Iceland.
Jorgensen, though bom of respectable parents, had been
apprenticed on a British collier, served in the British navy,
where, in his own words, he had imbibed the maxims, the
principles, and the prejudices of Englishmen, and on his
return to Copenhagen in 1806 had made himself unpopular
by his pro-British sentiments. On the outbreak of war he
had been put in command of a Danish privateer, but had
been taken prisoner after an engagement off Flamborough
Head with the Sappho and the Clio^ landed at Yarmouth,
and set free on parole.
As Iceland was wholly dependent on Denmark for
necessary imports, the war was a serious matter for her,
but the British, at the instigation of that exalted philan-
thropist Sir Joseph Banks, had given an undertaking to
allow Danish merchantmen to trade unmolested with the
island. These excellent intentions of His Majesty’s
Government were somewhat frustrated, however, by the
behaviour of one of His subjects, for in 1808 a Captain
Gilpin arrived in Beykjavik and made off with some
36,000 rix dollars apportioned for the relief of the poor.
To return to Mr. Phelps: acting on Jorgensen’s information,
he commissioned a Liverpool ship, the Clarence^ com-
manded by Mr. Jackson, to sail to Iceland with a cargo
which, according to himself, consisted largely of neces-
saries, barley meal, potatoes, and salt, and according to
Count Tramp, the Danish Governor of the Island, con-
sisted largely of luxuries. Mr. Jackson undertook to molest
no Danish ships under a penalty of an £8,000 fine. The
CSarence^ with Jorgensen, who omitted to mention his
departure to the authorities, and an English super- cargo,
Mr. Savigmac, set sail in December and landed in Reyk-
javik at the beginning of January 1809.
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Here they discreetly showed an American flag and
American papers, but were refused permission to trade,
whereupon they hoisted the British flag, hut with no
greater success. As Icelandic trade was a legal Danish
monopoly, this refusal on the part of the Danish officials
was, perhaps, not unnatural. Mr. Savigniac, however, was
determined to bring the Government to a sense of its duty
and interest, and ordered Captain Jackson to capture a
Danish brig which had just arrived. The officials capitu-
lated, and apparently gave some sort of permission, but
the Icelanders, either because they were fiightened, or
because they did not want the goods — ^it was a bad time
of the year for business — showed no inclination to buy or
sell. So matters continued till June, when Count Tramp
returned from Copenhagen on the Orion. A proclamation
forbidding the Icelanders to trade with the English under
point of death which had been previously composed but
kept in a chest till his arrival was now published. Shortly
afterwards, a British man-of-war, the Rover^ commanded
by Captain Nott, arrived, *with the object of which in
these parts’, says Count Tramp, T was unacquainted,
and the peaceable proceedings of which no convention
secured.’ On June 16th it appears that a convention was
arrived at between Count Tramp and Captain Nott per-
mitting trade, but this agreement, though sent to the press,
was somehow never published and the existing prohibition
remained in force. The Rover departed, but on June 21st
Mr. Phelps arrived in person, with the Flora and the Mar-
garet and Anne^ a ship of ten guns under Captain Liston.
By June 25th Mr. Phelps had decided that %nger
delay would be materially prejudicial to his interests, and
he must consequently be imder the necessity of having
recourse to measures no more consonant to his inclinations
than to his feelings’. He seized the Orion, and marching with
an armed crew of twelve to the Governor’s house, on Sunday
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afternoon after Divine Service, arrested Count Trampin the
of a conversation with a Mr. Kofoed. According to
his own account there were a number of Icelanders loiter-
ing about with long poles shod with iron spikes who made
no attempt to resist them, in spite of the fact that ‘it is
sufficiently known that in times of war the crews of mer-
chant ships consist of such men only as are unfit for the
service of His Majesty.’ He then asked Jorgensen to take
over the government of the Island, a prospect which seems
to have been highly agreeable to that yoxmg gentleman
for, on the next morning, he issued a proclamation dis-
solving all Danish authority, confiscating all Danish pro-
perty, confining aU Danes to their houses, threatening all
offenders against these decrees with being shot within two
hours, and promising all native Icelanders ‘undisturbed
tranquility and a felicity hitherto imknown’. On the
evening of the same day (Jime 26th) he issued a second
proclamation by which Iceland was declared an indepen-
dent republic, aU debts to Denmark were repudiated, and
the island was to be put in a state of defence. This last
provision proved more difficult than was anticipated. A
house-to-house search in Reykjavik only produced twenty
to thirty old fowling pieces, most of them useless, and a
few swords and pistols, so that the Icelandic army was
necessarily restricted to ‘eight men who dressed in green
tuuforms, armed with swords and pistols, and mounted on
good ponies, scoured the country in various directions,
intimidating the Danes, and making themselves highly
useful to the new Governor, in securing the goods and
property that were to be confiscated’. (The value of these
varies in different accounts from 16,000 to 19,000 rix
dollars.) As a farther act of authority, and to show the
clemency intended to be pursued, four prisoners confined
in the Tught-hus were released and the place itself con-
verted into barracks for the soldiers.
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The greater part of the army was soon employed in
seizing the persons of two of the civil officers, Mr, Frydens-
burg and Mr. Einersen, who were kept in confinement, the
former for one night, the latter for eight or ten days.
Hooker, who was an eye-witness of Einersen’s arrest, says
that ‘a horse was taken for him upon which he was placed
and, guarded by Jorgensen and his cavalry, was marched,
or rather galloped, into the town’. Meanwhile Mr. Samuel
Phelps had not been idle, but, to protect the town *an office
which he readily undertook for the security of the very con-
siderable property he now had there’, was building Fort
Phelps, which he equipped with six guns that had lain
buried in the sand on the shore for over 140 years.
On July 11th Jorgensen issued yet another proclama-
tion assuming the title of his Excellency the Protector of
Iceland, Commander-in-Chief by sea and land, decreeing
his private seal J. J. as the official seal, and forbidding all
irreverence to his person. A new flag, three split stockfish
upon a dark blue groimd, was hoisted for the first time on
the top of a warehouse under a salute of eleven guns from
the Margaret andAnne^ and was afterwards hoisted on Sun-
days. Having done this,his Excellency set out on foot for the
North with five of his army, and later returned with one.
All this time Count Tramp was a prisoner on board the
Margaret and Anne^ where he does not appear to have been
satisfied with his treatment. ‘Bent down’, he says, ‘under
the weight of so much grief and affliction united, it now
became my lot to be kept confined in a narrow and dirty
cabin, and sometimes, when Captain Liston took it into
his head, even shut up in a small room, or rather closet,
where I was deprived of the light of the day. Constantly I
was obliged to put up with the society of drunken and
noisy mates, and, with them for my companions, I was
reduced to exist on fare which even the men complained
of as being more than commonly indifferent; in short, I
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was deprived for the space of nine weeks, of every con-
venience and comfort of life to which I had been used, and
stibjected to all the suflferiags which the oppressor had it
in his power to inflict.’
These sufferings, however, were not destined to last.
On August 8th occurred an event ‘as unforeseen as it was
unfavourable to the present state of political and com-
mercial affairs.’ The Talbot, commanded by the Honour-
able Alexander Jones, arrived in Hafhafjordur, and, after
hearing both sides and deciding that ‘owing to his former
situation in life’ Mr. Jorgensen was unwelcome to the
inhabitants, arrested him for having broken his parole,
restored the Danish authority, destroyed Fort Phelps, and,
after a delay due to some Danes setting fire to the Margaret
and Anne, left Iceland at the end of August with Phelps,
Count Tramp, Jorgensen, and a congratulatory ode to
himself composed in Icelandic and Latin by a certain
Magnus Finnursson, or Finnur Magnusson, from which
the following is a translated extract:
He pretended that he served the English King: that he
depended on the protection of his armies.
He armed brothers against each other: terror seized the
remainder of the people.
Who had never before beheld the sword or blood: and
unwillingly submitted to the insolent yoke.
He, more powerful, raised fortifications: and erected his
standard black as hell.
He took a lordly title: having dared to assume posses-
sion of the supreme power.
He pretended that our people wished for these things:
and that they aU demanded these tumults.
The Revolution had lasted fifty-eight days, twelve men
had been employed, but not a shot fired (except in salutes)
nor a sabre unsheathed.
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The siibse<iueiit history of Samuel Phelps, *who was in
part to blame’, is unknown, but the unfortimate Jorgensen
was sent to the hulks at Chatham for a year, and was
afterwards released on parole at Reading. In prison, how-
ever, it seems that he had become a confirmed gambler,
and after sundry adventures was finally deported to Tas-
mania, where he became an explorer and a policeman. He
died at Hobartstown in 1844. On February 7th, 1810, the
British Government issued a decree guaranteeing the im-
munity of Iceland, the Faroes, and Greenland, from British
attack, and encouraging British trade with these places.
Count Tramp declared that ‘the peculiar favour which
Iceland and its concerns have met with here and the
manner in which His Majesty’s ministers have interested
themselves in its welfare, and above all the security ob-
tained for the future, has entirely obliterated all bitterness
from my heart’, but good Imperialists, like Hooker, still
grumbled a little. ‘England should no longer hesitate’,
he wrote, ‘about the adoption of a step to which every
native Icelander looks forward as the greatest blessing
that can befall his coimtry, and which to England herself
would, I am persuaded, be productive of various signal
advantages, the taking possession of Iceland and holding
it among her dependencies. Iceland, thus freed from the
yoke of an inefl&cient but presumptuous tyrant, might
then, guarded by the protection of our fleets and fostered
by the liberal policy of our Commercial Laws, look for-
ward to a security that Denmark could never afford, and
to a prosperity that the selfishness of the Danes has always
prevented; while England would find herself repaid for her
generous conduct by the extension of her fisheries, the
surest source of her prosperity, and by the safety which
the numerous harbours of the Island afford for her mer-
chantmen against the storms and perils of the Arctic
Ocean.’
F
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AN ICELANDIC SUPPER IN 1809
(Hooker)
^On the cloth was nothing but a plate, a knife and fork,
a wine glass, and a bottle of claret, for each guest, except
that in the middle stood a large and handsome glass-castor
of sugar, with a magnificent silver top. The dishes are
brought in singly; our first was a large tureen of soup,
which is a favourite addition to the dinners of the richer
people, and is made of sago, claret, and raisins, boiled so
as to become almost a mucilage. We were helped to two
soup plates full of this, which we ate without knowing if
anything was to come. No sooner, however, was the soup
removed, than two large salmon, boiled and cut in sUces,
were brought on and, with them, melted butter looking
like oil, mixed with vinegar and pepper; this, likewise, was
very good and when we had with some difi&culty cleared
our plates, we hoped we had finished our dinners. Not so,
for there was then introduced a tureen full of eggs of the
Cree, a great tern, boiled hard, of which a dozen were put
upon each of our plates; and for sauce, we had a large
basin of cream, mixed with sugar, in which were four
spoons, so that we all ate out of the same bowl, placed in
the middle of the table. We devoured with difiGlculty our
eggs and cream, but had no sooner dismissed our plates,
than half a sheep, well roasted, came on with a mess of
sorrel called by the Danes, scurvy-grass, boiled, mashed
and sweetened with sugar. However, even this was not all;
for a large dish of waffels as they are here called, that is to
say, a sort of pancake made of wheat flour, flat, and
roasted in a mould, which forms a number of s(juares on
the top, succeeded the mutton. This was not more than
half an inch thick and about the size of an octavo book.
Then bread, Norway biscuit and loaves made of rye were
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served up: for our drink we had nothing but claret, of
which we were all compelled to empty the bottle that
stood by us, and this too out of tumblers rather than
wine-glasses. The coffee was extremely good and we
trusted it woidd terminate the feast; but all was not yet
over; for a large bowl of rum punch was brought in and
handed round in glasses pretty freely, and to every glass
a toast was given. Another bowl actually came which we
were with difficulty allowed to refuse to empty entirely;
nor could this be done but by ordering our people to get
the boat ready for our departure, when, having concluded
this extraordinary feast by three cups of tea each, we took
our leave and reached Reykjavik about ten o’clock, but
did not for some time recover from the effects of this most
involimtary intemperance.’
ERUPTION OF THE ORAEFAJOKULL, 1727
(Jon. Thorlaksson, Minister of Sandfell, quoted
in Mackenzie)
Tn the year 1727, on the 7th August, which was the
tenth Sunday after Trinity, after the commencement of
divine service in the church of Sandfell, as I stood before
the altar, I was sensible of a gentle concussion under my
feet, which I did not mind at first; but, during the delivery
of the sermon, the rocking continued to increase, so as to
alarm the whole congregation; yet they remarked that the
like had often happened before. One of them, a very aged
man, repaired to a spring, a little below the house, where
he prostrated him self on the groimd, and was laughed at
by the rest for his pains; but, on his return, I asked him
what it was he wished to ascertain, to which he repUed,
‘‘Be on your guard, Sir; the earth is on fire!” Turning, at
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the same moment, towards the church door, it appeared
to me, and all who were present, as if the house contracted
and drew itself together. I now left the church, necessarily
ruminating on what the old man had said; and as I came
opposite to Mount Flega, and looked up towards the sum-
mit, it appeared alternately to expand and be heaved up,
and fall again to its former state. Nor was I mistaken in
this, as the event shewed; for on the morning of the 8th,
we not only felt frequent and violent earthquakes, but
also heard dreadful reports, in no respect inferior to
thunder. Everything that was standing in the houses was
thrown down by these shocks; and there was reason to
apprehend, that mountains as well as houses would be
overturned in the catastrophe. What most augmented the
terror of the people was, that nobody could divine in what
place the disaster would originate, or where it would end.
‘After nine o’clock, three particularly loud reports were
heard, which were almost instantaneously followed by
several eruptions of water that gushed out, the last of
which was the greatest, and completely carried away the
horses and other animals that it overtook in its course.
When these exudations were over, the ice mountain itself
ran down into the plain, just like melted metal poured out
of a crucible; and on settling, filled it to such a height, that
I could not discover more of the well-known mountain
Lounagrupr than about the size of a bird. The water now
rushed down the east side without intermission, and
totally destroyed what little of the pasture-grounds re-
mained. It was a most pitiable sight to behold the females
crying, and my neighbours destitute both of counsel and
courage: however, as I observed that the current directed
its course towards my house, I removed my family up to
the top of a high rock, on the side of the mountain, called
Dalskardstorfa, where I caused a tent to be pitched, and
all the church utensils, together with our food, clothes and
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other things that were most necessary, to be conveyed
thither; drawing the conclusion, that should the eruption
break forth at some other place, this height wotdd escape
the longest, if it were the will of God, to whom we com-
mitted ourselves, and remained there.
"Things now assumed quite a different appearance. The
JokuU itself exploded, and precipitated masses of ice,
many of which were hurled out to the sea; but the thickest
remained on the plain, at a short distance from the foot
of the mountain. The noise and reports continuing, the
atmosphere was so completely filled with fire and ashes,
that day could scarcely he distinguished from night, by
reason of the darkness which followed, and which was
barely rendered visible by the light of the fire that had
broken through five or six cracks in the mountain. In this
manner the parish of Oraefa was tormented for three days
together; yet it is not easy to describe the disaster as it was
in reality; for the surface of the groimd was entirely
covered with pumice-sand, and it was impossible to go out
in the open air with safety, on account of the red-hot
stones that fell from the atmosphere. Any who did venttire
out, had to cover their heads with buckets, and such
other wooden utensils as could afford them some pro-
tection.
‘On the 11th it cleared up a little in the neighbourhood;
but the ice-mountain still continued to send forth smoke
and flames. The same day I rode, in company with three
others, to see how matters stood with the parsonage, as it
was most exposed, but we could only proceed with the
utmost danger, as there was no other way except between
the ice-mountain and the JokuU which had been precipi-
tated into the plain, where the water was so hot that the
horses almost got unmanageable: and, just as we enter-
tained the hope of getting through by this passage, I
happened to look behind me, when I descried a fresh
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deluge of hot water directly above me, which, had it
reached us, must inevitably have swept us before it. Con-
triving, of a sudden, to get on the ice, I called to my
companions to make the utmost expedition in following
me; and by this means, we reached Sandfell in safety. The
whole of the farm, together with the cottages of two
tenants, had been destroyed; only the dwelling houses
remained, and a few spots of the tuns. The people stood
crying in the church. The cows which, contrary to all ex-
pectation, both here and elsewhere, had escaped the
disaster, were lowing beside a few hay-stacks that had
been damaged during the eruption. At the time the exuda-
tion of the JokuH broke forth, the half of the people be-
longing to the parsonage were in four nearly-constructed
sheep-cotes, where two women and a boy took refuge on
the roof of the highest; but they had hardly reached it
when, heing unable to resist the force of the thick mud
that was home against it, it was carried away by the
deluge of hot water and, as far as the eye could reach, the
three unfortunate persons were seen clinging to the roof.
One of the women was afterwards found among the sub-
stances that had proceeded from the Jokull, but burnt
and, as it were, parboiled; her body was so soft that it
could scarcely be touched. Everything was in the most
deplorable condition. The sheep were lost; some of which
were washed up dead from the sea in the third parish from
Oraefa. The hay that was saved was found insufficient for
the cows so that a fifth part of them had to be killed; and
most of the horses which had not been swept into the
ocean were afterwards foimd completely mangled. The
eastern part of the parish of Sida was also destroyed by
the pumice and sand; and the inhabitants were on that
account obliged to kill many of their cattle.
Tlie mountain continued to bum night and day from
the 8th of August, as already mentioned, till the heginning
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of Summer in the month of April the following year, at
which time the stones were still so hot that they could not
be touched; and it did not cease to emit smoke till near the
end of the Summer, Some of them had been completely
calcined; some were black and full of holes; and others
were so loose in their contexture that one could blow
through them. On the first day of Summer 1728, 1 went in
company with a person of quality to examine the cracks
in the mountain, most of which were sq large that we could
creep into them. I found here a quantity of saltpetre and
could have collected it, but did not choose to stay long in
the excessive heat. At one place a heavy calcined stone lay
across a large aperture; and as it rested on a small basis,
we easily dislodged it into the chasm but could not observe
the least sign of its having reached the bottom. These are
the more remarkable particulars that have occurred to
me with respect to this moxmtain; and thus God hath led
me through fire and water, and brought me through much
trouble and adversity to my eightieth year. To Him be
the honour, the praise, and the glory for ever.’
(For an account of the 1783 eruption see Nagrus Ste-
fansson’s account, quoted in Hooker, pp. 405-426.)
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EXTRACT FROM SUARBAR PARISH RECISTER» 1805
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ajrngriiniir Jonsson: Brevis Commentarius^ 1592; Anatome
Blefkeniana^ 1612; Epistola Defensoria^ 1618; Apo^
tribe Calumniae^ 1622; Chrymogea^ 1609-1630; Speci-
men Islandiae^ 1643.
Blefkenius: Islandia^ 1607,
Jour Boty: Treatise of the land from Iceland to Greenland
(Purchas III), 1608.
La Peyrfere: Account of Iceland (Churchill II), 1644.
John Andersson: Nachrichten von Island^ 1746.
Niels Horrehow: Nachrichten von Island^ 1750.
Tremarec: Relation d^un voyage dans la Mer du Nord,
1772.
Joseph Banks and Van Troil: Letters from Iceland^ 1772.
Hooker: Journal of a tour in Iceland^ 1811.
Sir George MacKenzie: Travels in Iceland^ 1812.
Ebenezer Henderson: Iceland^ 1818.
John Barrow: A Visit to Iceland^ 1835.
Arthur Dillon: A Winter (1834) in Iceland and Lapland^
1840.
Marmier: Lettres sur Vlslande^ 1837.
Paul Gaimard: Voyage en Islande et au Greenland (8 vols.),
1838-1852.
Madam Ida Pfeiffer: A Visit to Iceland^ 1854.
Pliny Miles: Rambles in Iceland^ 1854.
Robert Chambers: Tracings of Iceland and the Faroe
Islands^ 1856.
Charle^Edmund: Voyage dans les Mers du Nord^ 1857.
'Lord Dufferin: Letters from High Latitudes^ 1858.
Captain Forbes: Iceland^ 1860.
Metcalfe: The Oxonian in Iceland, 1861.
Symington: Pen and Pencil Sketches, 1862.
Baring-Gould: Iceland, its Scenes and Sagas, 1863.
Umbra (Clifford): Travels, 1865.
89
Sheaves from Sagaland
Shepherd: The N.W. Peninsula of Iceland, 1867.
PaykuU: A Summer in Iceland, 1868.
•William Morris: Journal, 1871-1873.
•Viscount Bryce: Impressions of Iceland, 1872 (pub. 1923).
Taylor: Egypt and Iceland, 1874 (pub. 1902).
Richard Burton: UUima Thule, 1875.
Lord Watts: Across the Vatnajokull, 1876.
Anthony Trollope: How the Mastiffs went to Iceland, 1878.
C. W. Locke: The Home of the Eddas, 1879.
W. G. Locke: Askja, 1881.
Coles: Summer-Travel in Iceland, 1882.
Miss Oswald: By Fell and Fjord, 1882.
Mrs. Alec Tweedie: A QirVs Tour in Iceland, 1882.
Eugene de Groote: Island, 1889.
Howell: Icelandic Pictures, 1893.
•Collingwood and Stefansson: A Pilgrimage to the Saga-
steads of Iceland, 1899.
William Bischer: Across Iceland, 1902.
Annandale: The Faroes and Iceland, 1905.
Daniel Bruun: Iceland. Routes over the Highlands, 1907.
W. Russell: Iceland. Horseback Tours in Sagaland, 1914.
Paul Hermann: Island. Das Land und das Volk, 1914.
Prinz: Dos XJnbekannte Island, 1932.
Mrs. Chapman: Across Iceland, 1934.
*Specially recommended.
90
Chapter VII
Letter to R. H. S. Crossman, Esq,
III ai gHSH gigrm -
Mulaho% July Bth
A. glacier brilliant in the heights of summer
Feeding a putty-coloured river: a field,
A countryside collected in a field
To appreciate or try its strength;
The two flags twitter at the entrance gates.
I walk among them taking photographs;
The children stare and follow, think of questions
To prove the stranger real. Beyond the wire
The ponies graze who never will grow up to question
The justice of their permanent discipline.
Nevertheless let the camera’s eye record it:
Groups in confabulation on the grass,
The shuffling couples in their heavy hoots.
The young men leaping, the accordion playing.
Justice or not, it is a world.
Isn’t it true however far we’ve wandered
Into our provinces of persecution
Where our regrets accuse, we keep returning
Back to the common faith from which we’ve all dissented,
Back to the hands, the feet, the faces?
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Letter to R. H. S. Crossman, Esq.
CMldren are always there and take the hands
Even when they’re most terrified; those in love
Cannot make up their minds to go or stay;
Artist and doctor return most often;
Only the mad will never never come back.
For doctors keep on worrying while away
In case their skill is suffering and deserted;
Lovers have lived so long with giants and elves
They want belief again in their own size;
And the artist prays ever so gently —
^Let me find pure all that can happen.
Only uniqueness is success! For instance.
Let me perceive the images of history,
All that I push away with doubt and travel.
To-day’s and yesterday’s, alike like bodies.’
Yes, just like that. See Gxmnar killed
At HUtharendi white across the river.
And Flosi waiting on Three Corner Ridge,
And as the dancing turns me round
The servants fighting up on Little Daimon.
But not these only, just as clearly
As them, as clearly as at the moment
The wraps of cellophane tom off
From cigarettes flit through the glass
Like glittering butterflies, I must see all.
The service yesterday among the copse of ashes.
The old men dragging h3nmns, the woman weeping
Leaning against her husband as he yawned;
And two days back the townee from the gasworks
Riding to Thorsmork, highly-stnmg,
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Letter to R. H. S. Crossman, Esq.
Loud-voiced, consumed with passion to excel
His slower- witted red-faced friend.
And see there if I can the growth, the wonder,
Not symbols of an end, not cold extremities
Of a tradition sick at heart.
For that’s our vulgar error, isn’t it,
When we see nothing but the law and order.
The formal interdiction from the garden,
A legend of a sword, and quite forget
The rusting apple core we’re clutching still.
It’s that that makes us really selfish:
When the whole fault’s mechanical,
A maladjustment in the circling stars.
And goodness just an abstract principle
Which by hypothesis some men must have.
For whom we spend our idle lives in looking.
And are so lazy that we quickly find them.
Or rather, like a child that feels neglected.
Our proof of goodness is the power to punish,
We recognise them when they make us suffer.
Until indeed the Markaflj ot I see
Wasting these fields, is no glacial flood
But history, hostile. Time the destroyer
Everywhere washing our will, winding through Europe
An attack, a division, shifting its fords.
Flowing through Oxford too, past dons of good will,
Stroking their truths away like a headache
Till only the unicorn and the fabulous bogey
Are real, and distinctly human only
The anarchist’s loony refusing cry:—
93
Letter to R. H. S. Crossman, Esq.
^Harden the heart as the might lessens*
Fame shall be ours of a noble defence
In a narrow place. No choices are good.
And the word of fate can never be altered
Though it be spoken to our own destruction.’
Dear Dick,
• I have just been staying in the Nj^ country. I gather
the Nazis look on that sort of life as the cradle of all the
virtues. The enclosed laws and regulations seem so dotty,
I thought they might interest you.
W.
Formula of Peace-Making
1. There was feud between N. N. and M. M. but now
they are set at one and many:
As the meter meted
And the teller told
And the doomsman deemed
And the givers gave
And the receivers received
And carried it away
With full fee as paid ounce
Handselled to them that cry’d to have it.
2. Ye two shall be made men:
At one and in agreement
At feast and food
At moot and meeting of the people
At church-soken and in the king’s house.
And wheresoever men meet
Ye shall be so reconciled together as that it shall hold for
ever between you.
94
Letter to R. H. S. Crossman^ Esq.
3. Ye two shall share knife and carven steak
And all things between yon
As friends and not as foes.
4. If case of quarrel or feud arise between you other than
is well It shall he booted or paid for with money and not
by reddening the dart or arrow.
5. And he of ye twain that shall go against the settle-
ment or atonement made
Or break the bidden troth.
He shall be wolf hUnted, and to be himted
As lean as men seek wolves;
Christian men seek churches;
Heathen men sacrifice in temples;
Fire burneth; earth groweth;
Son calleth mother, and mother heareth son;
Folk kindle fire;
Ship saileth; snow lieth;
The Fin skateth; the fir groweth;
The hawk flieth the long Spring day,
With a fair wind behind him and wings outspread;
Heaven tumeth; earth is dwelt on;
Wind bloweth; waters fall to the sea;
Churl soweth com.
6. He shall be out-cast
From Church and Christian men;
From houses of Gods and from men.
From every world save hell-woe or torment.
7. Now do ye two both hold one book and place the
money on the book that N. N. payeth for himself and his
heirs
Bom and unborn
Begotten and unbegotten
Named and unnamed.
95
Letter to R. H. S. Crossman ^ Esq.
8* N. N. taketh troth and truce as M. M. giveth it.
Dear troth and strong troth
An everlasting peace that shall hold for ever
While the world is and men live.
9. Now are N. N. and M. M. at peace or atonement and
accord wherever they meet
On land or water
On sea or on horseback
To share oar and bilge scoop
Bench and bulwark if need be
Even set with each other
AlS father with son or son with father
In all dealings together.
Now they lay hands together, N. N. and M. M. Hold
well these troths, by the will of Christ and of all those men
that have now heard this form of peace:
May he have God’s grace that holdeth these troths or
truce
And he His wrath that breaketh these troths or truce
And he have grace that holdeth them.
Hail, ye that are set at one
And we that are set as witnesses thereto.
Codex Regius.
Law of Wager of Battle
1. There should be a cloak of five ells in the skirt and
loops at the comers. They must put down pegs with heads
on one end that were called Tiosnos. He that was perform-
ing must go to the Tiosnos so that the sky could be seen
between his legs, holding the lobes of his ears, with this
form of words (words lost); and afterwards was performed
the sacrifice that is called the Tiosno -sacrifice.
2. There must be three lines about the cloak of a foot
96
Letter to R. H. S. Crossman^ Esq.
breadth; outside the lines there must be fom: posts, and
they are called hazels, and the field is hazelled when this
is done.
3. A man shall have three shields, and when they are
gone, then he shall step on to the skin though he have left
it before, and then he must defend himself with weapon
henceforth.
4. He shall strike first that is challenged.
5. If one of them be wounded so that blood come on the '
cloak, they shall not fight any longer.
6. If a man step with one foot outside the hazels, he is
said to flinch; but if he step outside with both feet, he is
said to run.
7. His own man shall hold the shield for each of them
that fight.
8. He shall pay ransom that is the more wounded, three
marks of silver as ransom.
The Viking Law
1. No man should enter that was older than fifty and
none younger than eighteen winters. All must be between
these ages.
2. Never should kinship be taken into account of when
they wished to enter that were not in the league.
3. No man there should run before a man of like power
or like arms.
4. Every man there should avenge the other as he would
his brother.
5. None then should there speak a word of fear or dread
of anything, however perilous things might be.
6. All that they took in warfare should be brought to the
stang or pole, little or big, that was of any value; and if a
man had not done this, he must be driven out.
97
G
Letter to R. H. S. Grossman^ Esq.
7. None there should kindle discussion or waken quarrel.
8. And if tidings came no man should be so rash as to
tell it to anyone, but all tidings should be told to the Cap-
tain.
9. No man should bring a woman into the fort.
10. And none should be abroad three nights together.
11. And though one had been taken into fellowship that
had slain father or brother of a man that was there before,
or any near kinsman, and it was found out after he was
received, the Captain should judge the whole case and
whatever quarrel might arise between them.
12. No man should have a sword longer than an ell, so
close were they to go.
13. They never took prisoners, women nor children.
14. No man should bind a woimd till the same hour next
day.
15. No man of them had less strength than two ordinary
men.
16. It was their custom to lie ever outside the nesses.
17. It was another custom of theirs never to put awnings
on their ships and never to furl the sail for the wind.
98
Chapter VIII
Letter to Lord Byron
PART III
jVIy last remarks were sent you £rom a boat.
I’m back on shore now in a warm bed-sitter.
And several j&iends have joined me since I wrote;
So though the weather out of doors is bitter,
I feel a great deal cheerier and fitter.
A party from a public school, a poet.
Have set a rapid pace, and make me go it.
We’re starting soon on a big expedition
Into the desert, which I’m sure is corking:
Many would like to be in my position.
I only hope there won’t be too much walking.
Now let me see, where was I? We were talking
Of Social Questions when I had to stop;
I t-bink it’s time now for a little shop.
In setting up my brass-plate as a critic,
1 make no claim to certain diagnosis,
I’m more intuitive than analytic,
I offer thought in homoeopathic doses
(But someone may get better in the process).
I don’t pretend to reasoning like Pritchard’s
Or the logomachy of I. A. Richards.
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Letter to Lord Byron
I like your muse because she’s gay and witty,
Because she’s neither prostitute nor firump.
The daughter of a European city,
And country houses long before the slump;
I like her voice that does not make me jump:
And you I find sympatisch, a good townee.
Neither a preacher, ninny, bore, nor Brownie.
A poet, swimmer, peer, and man of action,
— It beats Roy Campbell’s record by a mile —
You offer every possible attraction.
By looking into your poetic style.
And love-life on the chance that both were vile.
Several have earned a decent livelihood.
Whose lives were uncreative but were good.
You’ve had your packet from the critics, though:
They grant you warmth of heart, but at your head
Their moral and aesthetic brickbats throw.
A ^vulgar genius’ so George EUot said.
Which doesn’t matter as George Eliot’s dead,
But T, S. EUot, I am sad to find.
Damns you with: ^an uninteresting mind’.
A statement which I must say I’m ashamed at;
A poet must be judged by his intention.
And serious thought you never said you aiined at.
I think a serious critic ought to mention
That one verse style was really your invention,
A style whose meaning does not need a spanner.
You are the master of the airy manner.
By all means let us touch our humble caps to
La po€sie pure, the epic narrative;
But comedy shall get its round of claps, too.
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Letter to Lord Byron
According to Iiis powers^ each may give;
Only on varied diet can vre Kve.
The pious fable and the dirty story
Share in the total literary glory.
There’s every mode of singing robe in stock.
From Shakespeare’s gorgeous fur coat, Spenser’s muflf.
Or Dryden’s lounge suit to my cotton frock.
And Wordsworth’s Harris tweed with leathern cuff.
Firbank, I think, wore just a just-enough;
I fancy Whitman in a reach-me-down.
But you, like Sherlock, in a dressing-gown.
I’m also glad to find I’ve your authority
For finding Wordsworth a most bleak old bore.
Though I’m afiraid we’re in a sad minority
For every year his followers get more,
Their number must have doubled since the war.
They come in train-loads to the Lakes, and swarms
Of pupil-teachers study him in Storings.
T hate a pupil-teacher’ Milton said.
Who also hated bureaucratic fools;
Milton may thank his stars that he is dead.
Although he’s learnt by heart in public schools.
Along with Wordsworth and the list of rules;
For many a don while looking down his nose
Calls Pope and Dryden classics of our prose.
And new plants flower from that old potato.
They thrive best in a poor industrial soil.
Are hardier crossed with Rousseaus’ or a Plato;
Their ctJtivation is an easy toil.
WiUiam, to change the metaphor, struck oil;
His well seems inexhaustible, a gusher
That saves old England from the fate of Russia.
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Letter to Lord Byron
The motmtain-snob is a 'Wordsworthian fruit;
He tears his clothes and doesn’t shave his chin.
He wears a very pretty little boot,
He chooses the least comfortable inn;
A moimtain railway is a deadly sin;
His strength, of course, is as the strength of ten men.
He calls all those who live in cities wen-men.
I’m not a spoil-sport, I would never wish
To interfere with anybody’s pleasures;
By aU means cHmb, or htmt, or even fish.
An human hearts have ugly little treasures;
But tViinlr it time to take repressive measures
"When someone says, adopting the ‘I know’ line.
The Good Life is confined above the snow-line.
Besides, I’m very fond of mountains, too;
I like to travel through them in a car;
I like a house that’s got a sweeping view;
I like to walk, but not to walk too far.
I also like green plains where cattle are.
And trees and rivers, and shall always quarrel
With those who think that rivers are immoral.
Not that my private quarrel gives qpiietus to
The interesting question that it raises;
Impartial thought will give a proper status to
This interest in waterfalls and daisies.
Excessive love for the non-human faces.
That lives in hearts from Golders Green to Teddington;
It’s all bound up with Einstein, Jeans, and Eddington.
It is a commonplace that’s hardly worth
A poet’s while to make profotmd or terse.
That now the sun does not go rotmd the earth,
102
Letter to Lord Byron
That man’s no centre of the universe;
And working in an office makes it worse.
The humblest is acquiring with facility
A Universal-Complex sensibility.
For now we’ve learnt we mustn’t he so bumptious
We find the stars are one big family.
And send out invitations for a scrumptious
Simple, old-fashioned, jolly romp with tea
To any natural objects we can see.
We can’t, of course, invite a Jew or Red
But birds and nebulae will do instead.
The Higher Mind’s outgrowing the Barbarian,
It’s hardly thought hygienic now to kiss;
The world is surely turning vegetarian;
And as it grows too sensitive for this-
It won’t be long before we find there is
A Society of Everybody’s Aunts
For the Prevention of Cruelty to Plants.
I dread this like the dentist, rather more so:
To me Art’s subject is the human clay.
And landscape but a background to a torso;
All Cezanne’s apples I would give away
For one small Goya or a Daumier.
I’ll never grant a more than minor beauty
To pudge or pilewort, petty-chap or pooty.
Art, if it doesn’t start there, at least ends.
Whether aesthetics like the thought or not.
In an attempt to entertain our fidends;
And our first problem is to realise what
Peculiar fiiends the modem artist’s got;
It’s possible a little dose of history
May help us in unravelling this mystery.
103
Letter to Lord Byron
At tke Beginning I shall not begin.
Not with the scratches in the ancient caves;
Heard only knows the latest bulletin
About the finds in the Egyptian graves;
I’ll skip the war-dance of the Indian braves;
Since, for the purposes I have in view.
The English eighteenth century will do.
• We find two arts in the Augustan age:
One quick and graceful, and by no means holy.
Relying on his lordship’s patronage;
The other pious, sober, moving slowly.
Appealing mainly to the poor and lowly.
So Isaac Watts and Pope, each forced his entry
To lower middle class and landed gentry.
Two arts as different as Jews and Turks,
Each serving aspects of the Reformation,
Luther’s division into faith and works:
The God of the unique imagination,
A friend of those who have to know their station;
And the Great Architect, the Engineer
Who keeps the mighty in their higher sphere.
The important point to notice, though, is this:
Each poet knew for whom he had to write.
Because their life was still the same as his.
As long as art remains a parasite.
On any class of persons it’s alright;
The only thing it must be is attendant.
The only thing it mustn’t, independent.
But artists, though, are human; and for man
To be a sciwy is not nice at all:
So everyone will do the best he can
104
Letter to Lord Byron
To get a patch of ground which he can call
TTfq own. He doesn’t really care how small.
So long as he can style himself the master:
Unluckily for art, it’s a disaster*
To be a highbrow is the natural state:
To have a special interest of one’s own.
Rock gardens, marrows, pigeons, silver plate,
Collecting butterflies or bits of stone;
And then to have a circle where one’s known
Of hobbyists and rivals to discuss
With expert knowledge what appeals to us.
But to the artist this is quite forbidden:
On this point he must differ from, the crowd,
And, like a secret agent, must keep hidden
His passion for his shop. However proud.
And rightly, of his trade, he’s not allowed
To etch his face with his professional creases.
Or die from occupational diseases.
Until the great Industrial Revolution
The artist had to earn his livelihood:
However much he hated the intrusion
Of patron’s taste or public’s fickle mood,
He had to please or go without his food;
He had to keep his technique to himself
Or find no joint upon his larder shelf.
But Savoury and Newcomen and Watt
And all those names that I was told to get up
In history preparation and forgot,
A new class of creative artist set up.
On whom the pressure of demand was let up:
He sang and painted and drew dividends.
But lost responsibilities and friends.
105
Letter to Lord Byron
Those most affected were the very best:
Those with originality of vision,
Those whose technique was better than the rest.
Jumped at the chance of a secure position
With freedom from the bad old hack tradition.
Leave to be sole judges of the artist’s brandy.
Be Shelley, or ChUde Harold, or the Dandy.
So started what I’ll call the Poet’s Party:
(Most of the guests were painters, never mind) —
The first few hours the atmosphere was hearty.
With fireworks, fun, and games of every kind;
All were enjoying it, no one was blind;
Brilliant the speeches improvised, the dances.
And briUiant, too, the technical advances.
How nice at first to watch the passers-by
Out of the upper window, and to say
‘How glad I am that though I have to die
Like all those cattle, I’m less base than they!’
How we all roared when Baudelaire went fey.
‘See this cigar’, he said, ‘it’s Baudelaire’s.
What happens to perception? Ah, who cares?’
To-day, alas, that happy crowded floor
Looks very different: many are in tears:
Some have retired to bed and locked the door;
And some swing madly from the chandeUers;
Some have passed out entirely in the rears;
Some have been sick in comers; the sobering few
Axe trying hard to think of something new.
I’ve made it seem the artist’s silly fault,
In which case why these sentimental sobs ?
In fact, of course, the whole tureen was salt.
106
Letter to Lord Byron
The soup was full of little hits of snobs.
The common clay and the uncommon nobs
Were far too busy making piles or starving
To look at pictures, poetry, or carving.
I’ve simplified the facts to be emphatic.
Playing Macaulay’s favourite little trick
Of lighting that’s contrasted and dramatic;
Because it’s true Art feels a trifle sick,
You mustn’t th i n k the old girl’s lost her kick.
And those, besides, who feel most like a sewer
Belong to Painting not to Literature.
You know the terror that for poets lurks
Beyond the ferry when to Minos brought.
Poets must utter their Collected Works,
Including Juvenilia. So I thought
That you might warn him. Yes, I think you ought.
In case, when my turn comes, he shall cry ^Atta boys,
Off with his bags, he’s crazy as a hatter, boys!’
The clock is striking and it’s time for lunch;
We start at four. The weather’s none too bright.
Some of the party look as pleased as Punch.
We shall be travelling, as they call it, light;
We shall be sleeping in a tent to-night.
You know what Baden-Powell’s taught us, don’t you.
Ora pro nobis, please, this evening, won’t you?
END OF FART HI
107
Chapter IX
r. H. A. to E. M. A.-No. 1
July I2th.
StudmtagarthuTinn
Reykjavik
As you see, I’ve really got here. I didn’t go to Finland
after all. I felt another country would only be muddling.
Finland has not the slightest connection with Iceland, and
a travel hook about unconnected places becomes simply a
record of a journey, which is boring. I dare say it’s all right
if you’re a neo-Elizabethan yotmg man who has a hair-
breadth escape or meets a very eccentric clergyman every
five minutes, but I’m not. As it is. I’ve been here a month
and haven’t the slightest idea how to begin to write the
book. GoHancz told me before I left that it couldn’t be
done, and he’s probably right. StiU the contracts are
signed and my expenses paid, so I suppose it will get done. At
present I am just amusing myself, with occasional twinges
of uneasiness, like a small boy who knows he’s got an exam
to-morrow, for which he has done no work whatsoever.
I spent a very miserable first week here, for all the
people I had introductions to were away. Reykjavik is the
worst possible sort of provincial town as far as amusing
oneself is concerned, and there was nothing to do but soak
in the only hotel with a license; at ruinous expense. There
108
W. H. A. to E. M. A— No. 1
is a would-be English band there with a leader looking
Hke a stage gigolo, and real revolving coloured lights in the
ballroom after ten. But as it is broad daylight aU night
the effect is rather depressing. Gradually I began to meet
people, so that my head is reeling with gossip that I know is
libellous, and information that I suspect of being unreliable.
I hear, for instance, that such and such a politician is
either the first gentleman in Iceland or is suffering from
persecution mania since he was laughed at by some
children at the ski-club, that such and such a professor
pawned his marriage lines the day before the wedding,
that such and such a girl is a levis avis’, that the German
consul has smuggled in arms in preparation for a Putsch,
that the Icelanders cannot discipline their children, that
England is the true home of spiritualism, and that the only
good drinks are whisky and vermouth.
My own personal impressions don’t go far yet. There is
no architecture here and the pubUc statues axe mostly
romanticised Galahad-Yikings. The King of Denmark has
paid a visit and I watched him come out of the prime
minister’s house accompanied by distinguished citizens. I
know top-hats and frock coats don’t make people look
their best, but on their appearance alone I wouldn’t have
trusted one of them with the spoons. He went to see the
Great Geysir, which refused to oblige, and the current
rumour gives as the reason that out of national pride they
fed it with local soap instead of the Sunlight brand to
which it is accustomed.
The other excitement has been a Swedish students’ week.
They gave a concert, to which I went. They sangwellenough,
but the songs were dull — ^none of the polyphonic kind
which I hke. The concert opened oddly. One of the stu-
dents on the platform put on white gloves and a yachting
cap, and took hold of an enormous flag. Ab they began to
sing what I presume was the Swedish National Anthem
109
r. H. A. to E. M. A.-No. 1
as everyone stood up, he brought the flag smartly to the
present. I’m sure it Tvas much too heavy for him. The song
over he took oflf his gloves and his hat, stood the flag in the
comer, and joined the rest of the choir. It all looked very
pompous and silly, more what one would expect from the
Nazis than from a sensible Scandinavian democracy.
After the second song a bouquet was brought in for the
conductor; I hoped that this was just to encourage him^
and that they would bring in a new and better one after
each song till the platform was like a greenhouse, but I
was disappointed.
I’ve been to ThingveUir, the stock beauty spot, which
is certainly very pretty, but the hotel is full of drunks
every evening. A very beautiful one called Toppy asked
me to ring her up when I got back.
Last week I went down into the cotmtry and had a nice
time riding, but I can’t tell you about that now as I must
pack ready to set off to-morrow for the North. How I wish
you were here to help me, as you know how I hate it. This
hotel is all right, but not up to your standard of course.
It’s a hostel for university students in the winter. The fur-
niture is of that cosmopolitan modem sort you find in
the waiting-rooms of all European air-ports. Snags — ^the
food which is often cold and the bath which won’t work.
The proprietor is a nice man who tells me that he is a
practical idealist and that his children have perfect charac-
ters. I’ll try and go on with this to-morrow.
Hramsnef. July 15th
A game of mnomy prevented me writing last night, but
now there is an hour or so before the bus is due and I am
tired of helping with the hay, which I have been doing
since breakfast.
One of the nice things about Iceland is its small size, so
that everything is personal. A steam roller is called a
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Briett after a well-known feminist with deformed feet. I
had a proof of this on Monday morning when I was going
to catch the bns. A man I had never seen before stopped
me in the street and said ‘There are some letters for yon’,
took me along and unlocked the post office specially for
my benefit. How he knew I was leaving town I don’t know.
Among them were the proofs of my poems, so I can occupy
odd moments by trying to put in logical punctuation,
which is something I don’t understand. I can only think-
of them as breathing indications. I hope you will approve
of the dedication. They are due out in October, which is a
pity, as they will be eclipsed by the posthumous volume of
Housman which is due for then.
I wonder very much what there’ll be in it. There was a
nice quatrain gomg about the Oxford Senior Common
Rooms before I left England which he is said to have
woken up reciting to himself:
When the bells jussle in the tower
The hoUow night amid
Then on my tongue the taste is sour
Of all I ever did.
I’ve been trying to find out something about modem
Icelandic poetry. As far as I can make out there has been
no break since the Romantic Revival, which got here via
Denmark and Germany, i.e., no ‘modernist’ poetry to
puzzle the old ladies. Technically it is of a very high stan-
dard, rhyme, assonance, and alliteration are all expected.
As a Latin example of an Icelandic verse structure I was
given the following, which you can recite to any dirty-
minded don you meet.
Theodoras taxdavit
Tempore non surrexit
Violare voluit
Virginem non potuit.
Ill
r. H. A. to E. M. A.-No. 1
They seem to have preserved a passion for ingenuity
helped by their damnably inflected language, since the
days of the Scald’s, whose verse would have broken St.
John Ervine right up. Even now they write palindrome
verses which can be read forwards or backwards, like this:
Falla timans voldug verk Daga aUa stendur sterk
varla falleg saga. Studla riman snjalla
Snjalla riman studla sterk Saga falleg varla verk
Stendur alia daga. voldug timans falla.
Sentiment: Art is long and life is short or Bfe is short and
art is long. Or verses like this in which the second half is
made up of the beheaded words of the first:
Snuddar margur trassin Many a lazy idler lounges
traudur And finds the day long;
Treinist slangur daginn The wicked one rubs his red
Nudda argur rassin raudur bottom
reinist langur agmn. And finds discipline irksome
Another peculiar thing about Icelandic verse is the per-
sistence of a genuine poetic language. In the following, for
instance, which is the ecjuivalent of a double entendre
limerick like ‘The young people who firequent picture
palaces’, the first word for girl is as ‘poetic’ as demoiselle.
Yngissveinar fara d f joU
Fiona sprund i leynum
Stulfcur elska atlaf boll
ast fangnar £ sveinum.
The proper version is:
Young men go to embrace girls in secret
Girls love to go to the ball
In love with the young men.
But what has struck me most is that any average educated
pemon one meets can turn out competent verse. When I
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W. H. A. to E. M. A —No. 1
was down in the South, I had an Icelandic student as
companion; I gave him one of the ruthless rhymes:
When baby’s cries grew hard to bear
I popped him in the Frigidaire.
I never would have done so if
I’d known that he’d be frozen stiff.
My wife said ‘George, I’m so unhappe.
Our darliag’s now completely frappe.’
In twenty minutes he came back with this, which as far as
I can make out is pretty literal.
E grenjar kenja krakkinmnin
Eg kasta honum i snj6skaflin
Eg petta medal flj6tast finn
Th4 frys a honum kjafturinn
En sidan kveinar kerligin
Ad krdknad hafi dnginn sinn.
He also translated a serious poem of mine which I’m sorry
to say I’ve lost but it soimded grand. I in return have been
trying to teach them the Clerihew, and there are now, I
hope, many little boys going about saying
Jonathan Swift
Never went up in a lift,
Neither did Robinson Crusoe
Do so.
I recited to my present companion, Ragnar, who is a mine
of information about songs and proverbs, a touching little
cri du coeur made by a friend:
I think that I would rather like
To be the saddle of a bike
only to find that the Icelandic equivalent in terms of
horses already exists.
We are staying at a little farm under a cliff, called
H 113
W. H. A. to E. M. A. — No. 1
Hraensnef or Lava Nose, in Nordara, -wliicli is one of the
great salmon fishing rivers, bought up of course and let
to Harley Street surgeons and popular novelists. We
started at eight o’clock yesterday morning. The buses are
comfortable but the roads are not, and we hadn’t gone ten
miles before some of the passengers started to be sick. The
driver tells me that the Icelanders always are. We
stumbled along round a spectacular fjord called Hvalf-
jordur over a track that would have been rough going on
foot, passing historical sites like the island firom which a
pirate’s wife escaped her enemies by swimming to shore with
her two children on her back, and the farm where a seven-
teenth-century clergyman called Peterssen wrote some fam-
ous passion hymns and died of leprosy, imtil we stopped for
coffee at a little inn full of bad oil paintings and surroimded
by bedraggled hens. In the last fifteen years or so there has
grown up quite a school of Icelandic painters, and their
work is to be found in all inns, schools, and public buildings.
I’ve- seen some heads by a man called Kjarval which I
liked, one or two other landscapes by various people, and
a farmer’s own portrait of his mother; but Cezanne has
done them no good. I suppose I should also say that we
saw a pair of eagles. They looked far too heavy to fly.
We got to Hredavatn — a little lake about a mile and a
half away, where we intended to stop — about half-past
two, but the inn was full so we came on here, which is
much better situated. Behind is a great escarpment of rock
and to the left a cone-shaped mountain called Beula which
looks fine from this distance, but I am glad I haven’t got
to chmb it. To the right are some small craters which look
as if they had been made the day before yesterday, as they
are as destitute of vegetation as the slag heap of an iron
foundry, and are surrounded by a tiny lava field which
stops suddenly in the middle of the morass, like jam spilt
out of a howL
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W. H. A. to E. M. A.— No. 1
The sitting-rooms of Icelandic farms are all rather alike.
Like English cottages they are crammed with furniture
and knick-knacks; there are pictures on the walls, and a
bowl of picture postcards and snapshots of the family on
the table, and there is always a harmonium. Unfortunately
the music is nearly always the same, a book of psalm tunes
and a book of songs something like Gaudeamus, all rather
pom po pom pom. Here, however, I’ve found ‘Moonlight in
the Sahara’ but, alas, the vox hum an a won’t work. The
family consist of the farmer and his wife, an unmarried and
rather spoilt daughter, a very independent son of eleven
in a fetching red shirt, a little boy of four, the child of a
relation, and a boy who is helping with the harvest and
looks seventeen but is only fourteen. They are very hos-
pitable and friendly.
Yesterday morning we spent riding, and to my great
joy I got a really frisky horse who bucked and galloped as
hard as one could wish. I got a scare once when we were
going up the steep side of a valley and he started to slip. *
In the afternoon we rode to Hredavatn and took a boat
on the lake. It turned out a wonderful evening and we sat
on an island and threw stones and waved at a girl in a
bimgalow on the shore. It took us about an hour to catch
Ragnar’s horse again, which tried to kick or bite when you
came anywhere near it, but got home at last and spent the
evening playing rummy, which I like because you can talk
while you play. Svava, the daughter, had aU the luck, and
I discover that I am a very bad loser.
Ragnar is bothering me to come and pack, as the bus
should be here any minute.
Sandahrokur
We caught the Icelandic Train Bleu all right. Two
coaches crammed to capacity. How embarrassing it is to
get into an already crowded bus when the passengers have
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W. H. A. to E. M. A.— No. 1
got to know each other. We felt like the Germans invading
Belgium. But the atmosphere soon thawed; I got my
travelling rug well over my knees, found that my cigarettes
had come out of their packet into my pocket, and settled
down as an accepted citizen of a temporary regime.
In the front where the bunches of canvas flowers were,
sat the elite, including an immense 'woman in a tiger skin
coat. At the back where the bumps were at a maximum sat
ourselves. In front of me a man with a convict’s face look-
ing very green, and next to me a man looking like Thomas
Hardy. Presently the singing began. Two of the com-
monest tunes in Iceland are ones we know to Integer
Vitae, and God save the King. Ragnar turned out to have
a nice baritone, to know more songs, and to have more
self-confidence than the others, so he led the singing while
I fumbled for bass parts and occasionally got them. There
was one long song about a person called Melakoff who I
gather drank brandy and revived when the doctor began
to dissect him.
IVe got some gramophone records of more primitive
local music, including an amazing one of a farmer and two
children who yeU as if they were at a football match. These
are much more interesting; some of the music reminds me
of the sort of intoning you get at a Je'wish service, and
"with a curious prolonging of the final note.
The hills are all covered in mist. Road menders peered
out of wayside tents, bridge sides suddenly shaved the bus.
Loud cries of excitement told that someone had hit his
head very hard on the roof at a bump. Thomas Hardy
offered me some snuff and the bus roared when I sneezed.
Now we were passing through a district of terminal
moraines which looked too like the illustrations in a geo-
graphy text book to be real. Here the last public execution
took place in the early nineteenth century. Sweets were
passed round. Sick streamed past the 'windows.
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JF. H. A. to E. M. A. — No. 1
At four o’clock we reacted Blonduos, a one-horse sort
of place, where we were to have lunch. Everyone clattered
off to their respective lavatories and then down to the
dining-room, where I was lucky to arrive early enough to
get a real chair instead of a bench. The first course was rice
and raisins and ginger. I cotdd have wept, I was so himgry.
And the rest was scarcely better, enormous hunks of meat
that might have been carved with a chopper smeared with
half-cold gravy. No one can accuse the Icelander of being
dainty. I watched a large man opposite leisurely stuffing
down large pieces of tepid fat like the hero of a Sunday-
school story.
On again, grinding over a watershed, up test gradients.
The view from the top is said to he one of the best in the
is l and, but it wasn’t to-day. We came down to Vidamyri,
where stands the oldest church in Iceland. Unfortunately
we didn’t stop, and I only caught a glimpse of it, squat and
turf covered, like a shaggy old sheep with a bell roimd its
neck. Shortly afterwards we reached the crossroads where
we were to change horses. There was a hurricane blowing
and the temperature outside wasn’t far off jfireezing. As I
paid the driver a ten krdnur note blew away and I had to
chase it for a hundred yards. The bus from Akureyri had also
arrived, and Ragnar was talking to one of his old schoob
masters. I got into the primitive local bus and tried to get
warm. Luckily it was only forty minutes or so to Sanda-
krokur, and we got there at eight. It might have been
built by Seventh Day Adventists who expected to go to
heaven in a few months, so why bother anyway. I have no
wish to see it again. The ion is dirty, and smells like a
chicken run. The proprietor has a wen on his face and
charges 6 kr. a day. In my room are two embroidered
samplers — Blessed be the Lord and Blest are the pure in
heart — and an inferior print of Iceland’s first fishing ship,
dated 1876.
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W. H. A. to E. M. A.— No. 1
After supper I went to call on the local doctor, to whom
I had an introduction. A very nice man with a face like a
lizard, and a very keen diet crank. He has a hospital here
and is very interested in cancer, the recent increase of
which in Iceland he attributes to imported foods and too
much sugar. He says the annual consiunption of sugar per
head is 80 lb. Came back to an early bed. The fishing ship
creaked aU night.
Decided to get out of this place as soon as possible, but
it was not as easy as it sounded. A milk cart was due to
leave for Holar at 2. It left at 5.30. There were three of us
on a seat made for two, Ragnar, myself, and a gigantic
red-faced consumptive boy. We stopped every five minutes
to dump empty cans by the road side. Both my feet were
sound asleep by the time we reached Holar: a church, a
farm, and a large white agricidtural school in the depths
of a spectacxdar valley. The yotmg Danish headmaster of
the school welcomed us, and we sat and listened to the
wireless while supper was prepared. Someone apparently
has tried to assassinate King Edward VIII. Nobody looked
very interested. Supper was poor, and we played rummy
till bedtime with the consumptive and another boy with a
bandaged finger. I scored 270 in one hand and was very
pleased with myself.
Holar was the seat of a bishopric, and I spent the next
morning in the church, which is as ugly as most protestant
places of worship. The only relic of the past is the carved
altar piece. I strummed on the harmonium, and balanced
books and hassocks on the altar candlesticks, and stood on
the altar in my socks and struck matches trying to photo-
graph the carving. Mysterious violent figures rise out of
the background slashing at prisoners without looking at
them. Impassive horses survey another world than theirs.
One of the thieves has his head thrown right back and on
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r. H. A. to E, M. A.-No. 1
liis forehead dances a bear holding a child. Serried figures,
the Queen of Heaven with a tower, St. Peter with no back
to his head etc., rise Hke a Greek Chorus, right and left of
the main panel. After lunch we got a couple of rather
obstinate horses and started up the valley intending to
visit the glacier at its head. It was a brilliant sunny day
and we didn’t get half way, but lay on the grass dozing
and teasing a couple of bell spiders with a straw.
Great excitement here because Goering’s brother and a •
party are expected this evening. Rosenberg is coming too.
The Nazis have a theory that Iceland is the cradle of the
Germanic culture. Well, if they want a commimity Hke
that of the sagas they are welcome to it. I love the sagas,
but what a rotten society they describe, a society with only
the gangster virtues.
I saw Goering for a moment at breakfast next morning,
and we exchanged politenesses. He didn’t look in the least
like his brother, but rather academic.
The milk cart back to Sandakrokur was worse than the
first because we had to collect full cans. It took us four
hours to go forty-two kilometres, and I had run out of
cigarettes so just sulked into my waistcoat.
We didn’t get away again till eight in the evening, but
got through the afternoon somehow. We looked over the
cheese works, a friendly place, not too efficient nor too clean,
thank God. Two workmen were ragging about spinning
each other round on a turntable. An old woman came in
with a basket on her arm and begged for some cream. The
doctor took me over his hospital and showed me the apple
of his eye, his new X-ray apparatus. Most of the patients
were very old women. A younger one who had had a
cancerous breast removed the week before sat in a rocking
chair and said she felt better. A surgeon’s fees are not
princely. 100 kr. for the removal of a breast, 50 kr. for an
appendicotany, 18 kr. for amputating a finger. General
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W. H. A. to E. M. A.— No. 1
practitioners get a small allowance from the state, but
as they have to pay for their own dispensing, it must
be hard to make ends meet. Chloroform is little used,
and in the coimtry districts the midwife has to act as
anaesthetist.
The commonest complaints are T.B., cancer, and
gastric ulcer.
We went back to the doctor for dinner. He may be a
food crank but he has a very good table. He made us try
two Icelandic specialities, old shark and whale pickled in
sour milk, eccentric but not absolutely inedible. I smoked,
but a little guiltily, as on his shelves were a number of
books on the evils of tobacco. Time passed quickly enough
as I got down some of his surgical hooks to read.
We got to our little farm Ulfstadur at last, about 11
p.m., to find a hot meal waiting for us, and went straight
to bed.
Owing to some breakdown in the telephone system, the
bus next morning had not been warned and was too full to
take us, so we had to wait till the evening. Went riding in
the morning, and pottered about in the afternoon. There
was a lovely view from the lavatory. The bus came along
about five and we didn’t get to Afcureyri till half-past
eleven. Some of the passengers had bottles and were tight.
Once we stopped for coffee and once we all had to get out,
to cross a bridge the piles of which had sunk, making it
unsafe. Ragnar was at school in Akureyri and was besieged
by acquaintances the moment we arrived. It would be
nice to be greeted like that at Victoria or Paddington. All
the hotels were full and I was in rather a quandary, but a
fairiaired artist friend of Ragnar’s, one of a family of
sixteen, had a butcher brother-in-law who was away, and
we went off to his house, one of the new concrete ones, and
made ourselves a meal of eggs and tea at one o’clock in the
morning, feeling excited like sham burglars.
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fF. H. A. to E. M. A.— No. 1
Monday
Went down to the Hotel Gnllfoss for breakfast and
looked round Afcureyri, which is a much nicer town than
Reylqavik. Unfortimately there is a fish factory to the
north and to-day the wind is blowing fi:om the north.
There is a boat in the harbour going to Greenland on
a geological expedition, loading up horses and fodder.
With its single narrow funnel, its tall masts, and its
crow’s nest, it looks like an illustration out of a nine-
teenth-century adventure story. I went up to the school
to see its collection of Icelandic paintings. They may not
he very wonderful, but at least they are of interest to the
Icelanders.
The artists are trying to amuse their fiiends, and their
fiiends are not only artists. The pictures are not canned
art firom a Paris store which the locals must take because
there is no other.
In the afternoon I had my hair cut and called on a
lawyer, who gave me a whisky and cigar. We talked about
capital punishment, beating, and boarding-schools. In the
evening I went with a party of students to the only dance
hall. The Blue Boy Band were deafening and never stopped
playing for a second. Sweat poured off our faces. pity
about Berg’s death,’ I roared. But the band assured us all
that the music goes round and round. A few tables off
were the Greenland expedition, some of them half-caste
Danish Eskimos. The eskimo features seem dominant. I
stood it for about an hour and then went to bed.
Tuesday
I worked all this morning and finished a poem on Ice-
land at last, or rather it’s about the voyage out and better,
I hope, than William Morris’s effort.
The only other one I’ve done is about why people read
detective stories. Here it is.
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W. H. A. to E. M. A. — No. 1
Detective Story
For who is ever quite without his landscape.
The straggling village street, the house in trees.
All near the church, or else the gloomy town house.
The one with the Corinthian pillars, or
The tiny workmanlike flat: in any case
A home, the centre where the three or four things
That happen to a man do happen? Yes,
Who cannot draw the map of his life, shade in
The little station where he meets his loves
And says good-bye continually, and mark the spot
Where the body of his happiness was first discovered?
An unknown tramp ? A rich man ? An enigma always
And with a buried past — ^but when the truth.
The truth about our happiness comes out
How much it owed to blackmail and philandering.
The rest’s traditional. All goes to plan:
The feud between the local common sense
And that exasperating brilliant intuition
That’s always on the spot by chance before us;
All goes to plan, both lying and confession,
Down to the thrilling final chase, the kill.
Yet on the last page just a lingering doubt
That verdict, was it just? The judge’s nerves.
That clue, that protestation from the gallows,
And our own smile . • . why yes . • .
But time is always killed. Someone must pay for
Our loss of happiness, our happiness itself.
After lunch I went to bathe in what must be one of the
most northerly open-air swimming baths in the world. It
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W. H. A. to E. ilf. A. — No. 1
is fed from a hot spring and as the day was sunny and
windless most attractive. The standard of swimming here
is high and there was one first-class diver. I cannot con-
ceive of anything else I would rather be able to do well.
It’s such a marvellous way of showing off.
Have just heard for the first time of the civil war in
Spain. Borrowed two volumes of caricatures, which are
really my favourite kind of picture, and spent a very
happy evening with Goya and Daumier and Max Beer-
bohm, only slightly marred by the consciousness of a sore
throat, which means one of my foul colds to-morrow.
I’U get this off . in the post to-morrow morning, as I
shan’t be able to get another one posted for several days, I
expect, but I’ll write something every day and get it
posted when I can.
W.
123
Chapter X
Eclogue from Iceland
Scene: The Amarvatn Heath. Craven, Ryan, and the
ghost of Grettir. Voice from Europe,
R. T his is the place, Craven, the end of onr way;
Hobble the horses, we have had a long day.
C. The lake is said to he full of trout;
A pity the mist shuts the glacier out.
R. There used to he swans hut the frost last year
Has brought their numbers down round here.
C. I like this place. My personal choice
Is always to avoid the public voice.
R. You are quite right. Craven. F or people like us
This is an enviable terminus.
C, To stay here a week like a placid brute
To explore the country, to fish and shoot.
R. That would be life, not having to shave.
Clocking in as a wage-slave.
C. That would be life, Ryan, that would be life.
Without kowtowing to boss or wife.
R. And beside this cold and silicate stream
To sleep in sheepskin, never dream,
C. Never dream of the empty church,
R, Nor ofwaiting in a familiar porch
With the broken beUpuU, but the name
Above the door is not the same.
‘ 124
Eclogue from Iceland
C. And never wake to the maid’s knock
R. Nor to the sonr alarum clocks
C. Miss the faces fed at eight
And the daily paper on your plate,
R. And miss the pile of letters from
Forgotten Bill and ailing Tom,
C, Stop a moment. I think I hear
Someone walking over there.
R. Hell, Craven. Who could it be ?
Except the echo of you and me.
C. There is someone there just out of sight —
Will probably camp here to-night.
R. It is a damn bore anyhow.
Look. There he is coming now.
The mist makes him look so big
And he is limping in one leg.
G. Good evening, strangers. So you too
Are on the run? I welcome you.
I am Grettir Asmimdson,
Dead many years. My day is done.
But you whose day is sputtering yet —
I forget. . . . What did I say?
We forget when we are dead
The blue and red, the grey and gay.
Your day spits with a damp wick^
Will fizzle out if you’re not quick.
Men have been chilled to death who kissed
Wives of mist, forgetting their own
Kind who live out of the wind.
My memory goes, goes — TeU me
Are there men now whose compass leads
Them always down forbidden roads?
Greedy young men who take their pick
Of what they want but have no luck;
Who leap the toothed and dour crevasse
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Eclogue from Iceland
Of death on a sardonic phrase?
You -with crowsfeet round your eyes.
How are things where you come from?
C. Things are had. There is no room
To move at ease, to stretch or breed —
G. An d you with the burglar’s imderUp,
In your land do things stand well ?
R. In my land nothing stands at all
But some fly high and some lie low.
G. Too many people. My memory will go,
Lose itself in the hordes of modern people.
Memory is words; we remember what others
Say and record of ourselves — stones with the runes.
Too many people — sandstorm over the words.
Is your land also an island?
There is only hope for people who Uve upon islands
Where the Lowest Common labels will not stick
And the tmpoUuted hills will hold your echo.
R. I come from an island, Ireland, a nation
Built upon violence and morose vendettas.
My diehard countrymen, like drayhorses.
Drag their ruin behind them.
Shooting straight in the cause of crooked thinking
Their greed is sugared with pretence of public
spirit.
From all which I am an exile.
C. Yes, we are exiles.
Gad the world for comfort.
This Easter I was in Spain, before the Civil War,
Gobbling the tripper’s treats, the local colour.
Storks over Avila, the coffee-coloured waters of
Ronda,
The <»medy of the bootblacks in the cafSs,
The le^ess beggars in the corridors of the trains.
Dominoes on marble tables, the architecture
126
Eclogue from Iceland
Moorish mudejar churriguerresque,
The bullfight — ^the banderillas like Christmas
candles.
And the scrawled hammer and sickle:
It was all copy — ^impenetrable surface.
I did not look for the sneer beneath the surface.
Why should I trouble, an addict to oblivion.
Running away from the gods of my own hearth
With no intention of finding gods elsewhere?
R. And so we came to Iceland —
C. Our latest j oyride.
G. And what have you found in Iceland ?
C. What have we found? More copy, more surface.
Vignettes as they call them, dead flowers in an
album —
The harmoniums in the farms, the fine-bread and
pancakes
The pot of ivy trained across the window.
Children in gumboots, girls in black berets.
R. And dead craters and angled crags.
G. The crags which saw me j ockey doom for twenty
Years from one cold hide-out to another;
The last of the saga heroes
Who had not the wisdom of Njal or the beauty of
Gunnar,
I was the doomed tough, disaster kept me witty;
Being bom the surly jack, the ne’er-do-well, the
loiterer.
Hard blows exalted me.
When the man of will and muscle achieves the
curule chair
He tuarns to a bully; better is his lot as outlaw,
A wad of dried fish in his belt, a snatch of bil-
berries
And riding the sullen landscape far from friends
127
Eclogue from Iceland
Tkrougii the jungle of lava, dales of frozen fancy.
Fording the gletcher, ducking the hard hail,
And across the easy pastures, never stopping
To rest among the celandines and hogcotton.
Under a curse I would see eyes in the night.
Always had to move on; craving company
In the end I lived on an island with two others.
To fetch fire I swam the crinkled fjord.
The crags were alive with ravens whose low croak
Told my ears what filtered in my veins — ^
The sense of doom. I wore it gracefully,
The fatal clarity that would not budge
But without false pride in martyrdom. For I,
Joker and dressy, held no mystic’s pose.
Not wishing to die preferred the daily goods
The horse-fight, women’s thighs, a joint of meat.
C. But this dyspeptic age of ingrown cynics
Wakes in the morning with a coated tongue
And whets itself laboriously to labour
And wears a blas6 face in the face of death.
Who risk their lives neither to fill their bellies
Nor to avenge an affront nor grab a prize.
But out of bravado or to divert ennui
Driving fast cars and climbing foreign moimtains.
Outside the delicatessen shop the hero
With his ribbons and his empty pinned-up sleeve
Cadges for money while with turned-up collars
His comrades blow through brass the Londonderry
Air
And silken legs and swinging buttocks advertise
The sale of little cardboard flags on pins.
G. Us too they sold
The women and the men with many sheep.
Graft and aggression, legal prevarication
Drove out the best of us,
128
Eclogue from Iceland
Secmred long life to only the sly and the dumb
To those who would not say what they really
thought
But got their ends through pretended indifference
And through the sweat and blood of thralls and
hacks.
Cheating the poor men of their share of drift
The whale on Kaldbak in the starving winter.
R. And so to-day at Grimsby men whose Hves
Are warped in Arctic trawlers load and unload
The shining tons of fish to keep the lords
Of the market happy with cigars and cars.
C. What is that music in the air —
Organ-music coming from far?
R. Honeyed music — ^it sounds to me
Like the Wurlitzer in the Gaiety.
G. I do not hear anything at all.
C. Imagine the pmrple light on the stage,
R. The melting moment of a stinted age,
C. The pause before the film again
Bursts in a shower of golden rain.
G. I do not hear an3rthmg at all.
C. We shall be back there soon, to stand in queues
For entertainment and to work at desks.
To browse round counters of dead books, to pore
On picture catalogues and Soho menus.
To preen omrselves on the reinterpretation
Of the words of obsolete interpreters.
Collate, delete, their faded lives like texts.
Admire Flaubert, Cezanne — ^the tortured artists —
And leaning forward to knock out our pipes
Into the fire protest that art is good
And gives a meaning and a slant to life.
G. The dark is falling. Soon the air
Will stare with eyes, the stubborn ghost
129
I
Eclogue from Iceland
Wlio cursed me when I threw him. Must
The ban go on forever? I,
A ghost myself, have no claim now to die.
R. Now I hear the music again —
Strauss and roses — ^hear it plain.
The sweet confetti of music falls
From the high Corinthian capitals.
C. Her head upon his shoulder lies. . . .
Blend to the marrow as the music dies.
G. Brought up to the rough-house we took offence
quickly
Were sticklers for pride, paid for it as outlaws —
C. like Cavalcanti, whose hot blood lost him Florence
R. Or the Wild Geese of Ireland in Mid-Europe.
Let us thank God for valour in abstraction
For those who go their own way, will not kiss
The arse of law and order nor compound
For physical comfort at the price of pride:
Soldiers of fortune, renegade artists, rebels and
sharpers
Whose speech not cramped to Yea and Nay ex-
plodes
In crimson oaths like peonies, who brag
Because they prefer to taunt the mask of God,
Bid him unmask and die in the living lightning.
What is that voice maundering, meandering?
V oiGE. Blues . . . blues . . . high heels and manicured hands
Always self-conscious of the vanity bag
And puritan painted lips that abnegate desire
And say ‘we do not care’ . . . ‘we do not care’ —
I don’t care always in the air
Give my hips a shake always on the make
Always on the mend coming around the bend
Always on the dance with an eye to the main
Chance, always taking the floor again —
isa
Eclogue from Iceland
C. There was Tchekov,
TTfq haemorrliages drove him out of Moscow,
The life he loved, not bom to it, who thought
That when the windows blurred with smoke and
talk
So that no one could see out, then conversely
The giants of frost and satans of the peasant
Coidd not look in, impose the evil eye.
R. There was MacKenna
Spent twenty years translating Greek philosophy,
111 and tormented, unwilling to break contract,
A brilliant talker who left
The salon for the solo flight of Mind.
G. There was Onund Treefoot
Came late and lame to Iceland, made his way
Even though the land was bad and the neighbours
jealous.
C. There was that dancer
Who danced the war, then falling into coma
Went with himched shoulders through the ivory
gate.
R. There was ConnoUy,
Vilified now by the gangs of Catholic Action.
G. There was Egil,
Hero and miser, who when dying blind
Would have thrown his money among the crowd
to hear
The whole world scuffle for his hoarded gold.
C. And there were many
Whose common sense or sense of hxunour or mere
Desire for self assertion won them through
R. But not to happiness. Though at intervals
They paused in sunlight for a moment’s fusion
With friends or nature till the cynical wind
Blew the trees pale —
131
Voice.
Eclogue from Iceland
Blues, blues, sit back, relax.
Let your self-pity swell with the music and clutch
Your tiny lavendered fetishes. Who cares
If floods depoptdate China? I don’t care
Always in the air sitting among the stars
Among the electric signs among the imported
wines
Always on the spree climbing the forbidden tree
Tossing the peel of the apple over my shoulder
To see it form the initials of a new intrigue,
&. Runes and runes which no one could decode,
R. Wrong numbers on the ’phone — she never
answered.
C, And from the romantic grill (Spanish baroque)
Only the eyes looked out which I see now.
G. You see them now?
C. But seen before as well.
G. And many times to come, be sure of that.
R. I know them too
These eyes which hang in the northern mist, the
brute
Stare of stupidity and hate, the most
Primitive and false of oracles.
C. The eyes
That glide like snakes behind a thousand masks —
All human faces fit them, here or here:
Dictator, bullying schoolboy, or common lout.
Acquisitive women, financiers, invalids.
Axe capable all of that compelling stare.
Stare which betrays the cosmic purposelessness
The nightmare noise of the scythe upon the hone.
Time sharpening his blade among high rocks alone.
R. The face that fate hangs as a figurehead
Above the truncheon or the nickelled death.
G. I won the fall. Though cursed for it, I won.
132
Eclogue from Iceland
C. Which is why we honour you who working from
The common premisses did not end with many
In the blind alley where the trek began.
G. Though the open road is hard with frost and dark.
Voice. Hot towels for the men, mud packs for the women
Will smooth the puckered minutes of your lives.
I offer you each a private window, a view
(The leper window reveals a church of lepers).
R, Do you believe him ?
C. I don’t know.
Do you believe him?
G. No.
You cannot argue with the eyes or voice;
Argument will frustrate you till you die
But go your own way, give the voice the lie,
Outstare the inhuTYian eyes. That is the way.
Go back to where you came from and do not keep
Crossing the road to escape them, do not avoid the
ambush.
Take sly detours, but ride the pass direct.
C. But the points of axes shine from the scrub, the
odds
Are dead against us. There are the lures of women
Who, half alive, invite to a fuller life
And never loving would be loved by others.
R. Who fortify themselves in pasteboard castles
And plant their beds with the cast-out toys of
children.
Dead pines with tinsel fruits, nursery beliefs.
And South Sea Island trinkets. Watch their years
The permutations of lapels and gussets.
Of stuffs — georgette or velvet or corduroy —
Of hats and eye-veils, of shoes, lizard or suede,
Of bracelets, milk or coral, of zip bags,
Of compacts, lipstick, eyeshade, and coiffures
133
Eclogue from Iceland
All tributary to tie 'wished ensemble.
The carriage of body that belies the soul.
C. And there are the men who appear to be men of
sense,
Good company and dependable in a crisis.
Who yet are ready to plug you as you drink
like dogs who bite firom fear; for fear of germs
Putting on stamps by licking the second finger.
For fear of opinion overtipping in bars.
For fear of thought studying stupefaction.
It is the world which these have made where dead
Greek words sprout out in tin on sallow walls —
Qinic or polytechnic — a world of slums
Where any day now may see the Gadarene swine
Rush down the gullets of the London tubes
When the enemy, x or y, let loose their gas.
G. My friends, hounded like me, I tell you still
Go back to where you belong. I could have fled
To the Hebrides or Orkney, been rich and famous.
Preferred to assert my rights in my own country.
Mine which were hers for every country stands
By the sanctity of the individual wiU.
R. Yes, he is right.
C, But we have not his strength,
R. Could only abase ourselves before the wall
Of shouting flesh.
Could only offer our humble
Deaths to the unknown god, unknown but wor-
shipped.
Whose voice calls in the sirens of destroyers.
G. Minute your gesture but it must be made —
Your hazard, your act of defiance and hymn of
hate.
Hatred of hatred, assertion of human values.
Which is now your only duty.
lU
Eclogue from Iceland ■
C. Is it otur only duty?
G. Yes, my friends.
Wiat did you say? The night falls now and I
Must beat the dales to chase my remembered acts.
Yes, my fiiends, it is your only duty.
-And, it may be added, it is your only chance.
L.M.
135
Chapter XI
W. H. A. to E. M. A.-No. 2
Wednesday
Ahirefyri.
I was right. My throat is much worse, like a lime kiln.
I don’t know whether this stage is the most unpleasant or
the next, when I shall cry for two days. Most disfiguring
and emharrassing and I’ve only got one handkerchief. I
suppose my It is really repenting its sins, which it appa-
rently has to do about every six mouths, but I wish it
wouldn’t. I caught the nine o’clock bus to Myvatn, full 0/
Nazis who talked incessantly about Die Schonheit des
Islands, and the Aryan qualities of the stock ‘Die Kinder
sind so reizend: schone blonde Haare und hlaue Augen.
Ein echt Germanischer Typus.’ I expect this isn’t gram-
matical, but that’s what it sounded like. Fm glad to say
that as they made this last remark we passed a pair of kids
on the road who were as black as night. In the comer was
a Danish ornithologist with a pursed little mouth, like a
bank derk who does a little local preaching in his spare
time, who answered a Danish girl next to him in explosive
monosyUahles as if he were unused to talking and couldn’t
moderate his voice. Two more hikers got in, Austrians this
time, and then a German ornithologist with a guide who
looked a cross between Freud and Bernard Shaw. For the
136
JF. H. A. to E. M. A.— No. 2
first time I have struck a dud bus. It developed a choke in
the petrol feed and got slower and slower. We got to the
Godafoss and I had some coflfee while the Ger m a n s went
to admire. One w^aterfall is extraordinarily like another.
We didn’t get to Myvatn till three o’clock and I was
hungry and seedy and cross. The lake is surrounded by
little craters like candle snuflfers and most attractive. Hay
was being made everywhere and the haymakers were using
aluminium rakes, which I have never seen before. I had to •
make arrangements for an old German and his beautiful
daughter who knew no English or Icelandic, who wanted to
go to Dettifoss but didn’t know if they dare. Papa was
afraid it was too much for daughter, and daughter that it
was too much for Papa, especially the horses. As he can’t
have weighed a poimd under 16 stone, it is the horses who
should worry. Afterwards I lay in the sun watching the
hay being made and taking photographs. If I can get them
developed in time, and any of them come out, I’ll send
you some. It’s a pity I am so impatient and careless, as any
ordinary person could learn all the technique of photo-
graphy in a week. It is the democratic art, i.e. technical
s kill is practically eliminated — the more fool-proof cameras
become with focusing and exposure gadgets the better —
and artistic quality depends only on choice of subject.
There is no place for the professional still photographer,
and his work is always awful. The only decent photo-
graphs are scientific ones and amateur snapshots, only you
want a lot of the latter to make an effect. A single still is
never very interesting by itself. We started back about
five, more crowded than ever, and the petrol stoppage
much worse. We stopped to fill up and I was very annoyed
because I was the wrong side of the bus to take the far-
mer’s girl working the pump, which would have made a
beautiful Eisensteiu sort of shot. The bus got weaker and
weaker and I thought we were going to run backwards
137
W. H. A, to E. M. A.— No. 2
down a TiiH. A lot of passengers got off at a school, thank
goodness, and we tottered home, hack-firing all the way,
with a magnificent sunset over the mountains, and got in
ahout ten. I went to eat and then ran into some drunk
Norwegian sailors. An Icelandic acquaintance of theirs
passed and greeted one by slapping him on the bottom,
which started a furious argument conducted entirely in
’Rnglish, something like this.
. — Why did you do that ?
— Why shouldn’t I ?
— Don’t you know it’s an insult to slap a man on his
arse?
— No, it isn’t.
— Yes, it is.
— No it isn’t. It’s an Icelandic custom.
— Oh no, it isn’t.
— How do you know?
— How do I know. Everybody knows.
— No, they don’t.
— I tell you it’s an insult to slap a chap’s arse.
How can you tel me when you don’t know about
Iceland?
— If you don’t know that, you’re goddam uneducated.
— How should I know that when I know it isn’t.
(Two officers stroll up and stand by. The crowd
begins to disperse.)
— Well, be more careful, next time. Mister, see.
— Same to you.
Thursday
Left at 8 a.m. for the east. The first part of the way
was the same as yesterday. A couple were drawing nets
out of a laTcft like a scene in the New Testament. At Goda-
foss one of the real professional English travellers got in,
something I shall never be, handsome, sunburnt, reserved,
138
W. H. A. to E. M. A.— No. 2
speaking fluent Icelandic. Got to Husavik for lunch. A beau-
tiful bay and much sun. On the pier herring gutting was in
fidl swing; great beefy women standing up to their an k les
in blood and slime, giving free demonstrations of manual
dexterity. My cold has rolled over into the next stage and I
am beginning to weep. After Husavik the road branched off
into the desert and there were still large patches of snow on
the stones, the remains of a particularly severe winter,
looking as if a small boy had got loose with the whitewash.
I amused myself by identifying the pictures. There was
Australia, and there was Italy, and that one surely was
meant to be Arthur Balfour. We crossed an estuary plain
and stopped to look at Ausbyrgi, a vaulted horseshoe-
shaped ravine about two miles long, said to have been
made by Odin’s horse Sleipnir when he slipped. Ragnar
pointed out a house to me where lived a painter who has a
platonic passion for the Dettifoss and spends his days
painting it.
After Asbyrgi the condition of the road defies descrip-
tion. Two ruts full of stones. Thank God there are only
four of us in the bus. We can just manage about 5 m.p.h.,
first through a sort of scrub like the horrible country
where O.T.C. field days are always held, then through
absolute desert, sand and rocks, Hke the uninteresting and
useless debris of an orgy. My cold keeps boiling over like a
geysir. Hours pass. The lights are lovely. Now we are
worming like a beetle through sandh il ls, sandhills of every
shape, the pincushion, the carrot, the breaking wave. We
sit swaying hke sacks. Nobody speaks. About ten we get
to Grimstadur, the farm where we are stopping the night.
A bag of lime has burst in the luggage compartment and
percolated into my pack. I watched the farmer’s family
crowding round him as he stood against a wall in the dusk
and read the newspaper we had brought him. We had
supper and tumbled into bed.
139
W. H. A. to E. M. A. — No. 2
Friday
Lovely weather still, but my cold is still streaming so
that I can’t look anybody in the face. The country is a
wide flat plain spotted with steep little hills and ridges.
Herdubreid, looking with its glacier on the top like a large
iced cake, stands up ahead of us, and far in the distance
you can catch a glimpse of the VatnajokuU, the big icefield
in the south. The road is better now and we get along quite
quickly. We stop for a moment at the next large farm,
Morduradalur, which is renowned for its home-made ale
and a drunken clergyman. The country clergy here are all
farmers as well, which brings them in touch with their
parishioners, but perhaps rather secularises them. But I
fancy that religion has never been very enthusiastic in Ice-
land. The church organisation certainly must have been
the one thing which civilised the social structure of the
settlers, but I can’t picture Iceland producing St. Francis
or St. Theresa.
I foimd a nice little story in the Faroe saga.
Thora asked him what teaching his foster-father had
given him on Holy Writ. Sigmund said he had learnt his
paternoster and creed. Thora said — I would like to hear
it! On which he sang his paternoster, as she thought, pretty
well. But Sigmimd’s creed ran thus —
Given to us are angels good.
Without them go I ne’er a foot;
Where’er I am, where’er I fare
Five angels follow everywhere.
Paltering prayer, if so I be.
To Christ they bear them presently:
Psalms, too, seven can I sing —
Have mercy on me, God my King.
‘At this moment Thrand comes into the room and asks
what they are talking about. Thora answers and says her
140
r. H. A. to E. M. A.— No. 2
son has been rehearsing the Christian knowledge he had
taught him. But the creed seems to be wrong! ‘^Ah!” said
Thrand, ‘‘Christ, you know, had twelve disciples or more^
and each of them had his own credo. Now I have my
credo, and you have the credo you have been taught;
there are many credos, and they may be right without
being exactly the same.” And with that the conversation
ended/
We crossed the watershed and came down to Skjoldolfs- •
stadur for a not very good lunch. Sweet soup, which I will
not eat, and hot smoked mutton, which I can only just get
down. Then on to Egilsstadur for tea where I say good-bye
to Ragnar and get off. Egilsstadur is one of the largest
farms in Iceland and the first place where I have got
really good food. It has a private cemetery on a little hill,
surrounded by birch trees, but private cemeteries aren’t
allowed any more. I went and looked at a fine bull, which
looked absurdly like a fiilm director I know called Arthur
Elton, and then found the lavatory, which opens into a
lower bam, giving such an updraught that the paper
flies up instead of down and I had to chase it like a
moth.
In the bus to-day I had a bright idea about this travel
book. I brought a Byron with me to Iceland, and I sud-
denly thought I might write him a chatty letter in light
verse about anything I could think of, Europe, literature,
myself. He’s the right person I think, because he was a
townee, a European, and disliked Wordsworth and that
kind of approach to nature, and I find that very S3nmpa-
thetic. This letter in itself will have very little to do with
Iceland, but will be rather a description of an effect of
travelling in distant places which is to make one reflect
on one’s past and one’s culture from the outside- But it
win form a central thread on which I shaU hang other
letters to different people more directly about Iceland.
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W. H. A. to E. M. A.— No. 2
Who the people mil be I haven’t the slightest idea yet,
but I must choose them, so that each letter deals mth its
subject in a different and significant way* The trouble
about travel books as a rule, even the most exciting ones,
is that the actual events are all extremely like each
other — ^meals — sleeping accommodation — ^fleas — dangers,
etc, and the repetition becomes boring. The usual alter-
native, which is essays on life prompted by something
seen, the kind of thing Lawrence and Aldous Huxley
do, I am neither clever enough nor sensitive enough to
manage.
I hope my idea will work, for at the moment I am
rather pleased with it, I attribute it entirely to my cold.
It is a curious fact how often pain or slight illness stimu-
lates the imagination. The best poem I have written this
year was written immediately after having a wisdom
tooth out.
Saturday
The weather has broken at last and it is cold and pouring
wet. I consoled myself with the harmonium. There is more
music here than usual, and my rendering of the Air on the
G string was very moving, but I came to grief on a gavotte
or a trumpet suite. One of the more curious jobs in this
world must be inventing attractive names for harmonium
stops, particularly for the tremolo. In this coimtry I have
seen it called: Vox humana — ^Aeolean harp — ^V ox seraphi-
cum — ^V ox celeste and Cor angelicus.
Went for a short walk in the afternoon to the bridge
over the half -lake, half-river which fills this valley. I was
thinking about a picture of the seven ages of man I saw in
some book or other. A girl playing a flute to a yoimg man,
two infants wrestling in a meadow, and an old man
staggering to a grave, you know the kind of thing. After
tea the thoughts developed into a poem.
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W. H. A. to E. M. A.— No. 2
0 wLo can ever praise enough
The world of his belief?
Harum-scarum childhood plays
In the meadows near his home;
In his woods love knows no wrong;
Travellers ride their placid ways;
In the cool shade of the tomb
Age’s trusting footfalls ring,
0 who can paint the vivid tree
And grass of fantasy?
But to create it and to guard
Shall be his whole reward.
He shall watch and he shall weep.
All his father’s love deny,
To his mother’s womb beiost.
Eight nights with a wanton sleep,
But upon the ninth shall be
Bride and victim to a ghost.
And in the pit of terror thrown
Shall bear the wrath alone.
A rich tradesman and family from Reykjavik have
arrived. Unpleasant. Smug with money and no manners.
The children keep whispering.
Sunday
StiH wet, but my cold is much better. Worked at the
Byron letter in the morning and after lunch, thank good-
ness, the rich people went away. I asked for a horse and
did I get one! The farmer gave me his own, which is the
prize race horse of East Iceland. He came with me and we
had a marvellous ride. I didn’t start too well, as when I
mounted in a confined courtyard with a lot of other horses
near, I clucked reassuringly at him, which sent him pranc-
ing roimd, scattering people and horses in all directions. I
143
W. H. A. to E. M. A. — No. 2
was rather frightened, but got on all right after that. The
moment we got on the road, we set off at fall gallop, and
on the last stretch home I gave him his head and it was
more exciting than a really fast car. The farmer said,
^You’ve ridden a lot in England, I expect.’ I thought of
my first experience at Laugavatn a month ago, and how
I shocked an English girl by yelling for help, I thought of
the day at ThingveUir when I fell right over the horse’s
neck when getting on in full view of a party of picnickers.
This was my triumph. I was a real he-man after all. Still,
Ronald Firbank was a good horseman. And what about
those Scythians,
Spent the evening playing rummy with the farmer’s
children, a girl of fourteen with an extravagant squint,
and two boys of twelve and eight, all charming. I hope
to go up to the vaUey to Hallormastadur to-morrow.
Monday
Arrived here safely this afternoon. This place is a school
in the winter to teach girls weaving and cooking. The
headmistress is the image of Queen Victoria and rather
formidable, but I think she will thaw.
Staying here is a Scotch girl, an English lecturer at one
of our provincial universities, and a great Icelandophil.
^ She thinks them like the Greeks. Terribly enthusiastic,
rushing at life like a terrier. I wonder if she reafly enjoys
herself as much as she protests. I can imagine her in a siege
saying at dinner, ‘What? Fried rats? Goody. How awfully
exciting.’ But she is intelligent and extremely good-hearted.
Tuesday
I fotmd an excellent collection of German songs and
spent the morning playing them. Really, they choose
funny things to cheer themselves up with. How about this
for a soldier’s song?
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W. H. A. to E. M. A.— No. 2
Die bange Nacbt ist nmi herum
Wir reiten still, vnr reiten stu mm
Wir reiten ins Verderben,
I found a nice nursery song from Saxony:
Hermann, fla larman
Fla pipen, fla trummen
Der Kaiser will kummen
Mit Hammer und Stangen
Will Hermann uphangen.
It’s a great pleasure to think that all the best nursery
poetry shocks the Neo-Hygienic-child-lover. There’s an
Icelandic lullaby for instance:
Sofur thu svind thitt
Svartur i augum
Far i fulan pytt
Fullan af draugum
which means, I think:
Sleep, you black-eyed pig.
Fall into a deep pit full of ghosts.
I also found a magnificent Dance of Death, which I
expect you know, but I had never seen before, and which
seems very topical. I like the grammar lesson in the last
line:
Der Tod reit’ oft als General
Beim Trommel und Kanonschall.
Er gibt Parol, du musst ihm nach
Ins Bivouac bis zum letzen Tag.
Als klapperdiirrer Musikant
Zieht er durch Deutschland imd welsche Land
Und wenn er geigt, tanzt alles geschwind,
Der Mann, das Weib, der Bursch, das Kind.
145
K
W. H. A. to E. M. A. — No. 2
The book belongs to a German lady who married an
Icelander, solely, as far as I can see, in order to have a
child, as she left him immediately after, and now won’t
go back to Germany. She had a magazine from the Race
Bureau oftheN.S.D.P. which was very funny. Boy-scout
yoimg Aryans striding along with arms swinging past fairy-
story negroes and Jews.
In the afternoon we rode over the lake to Brekka, where
the local doctor lives, and had tea. A romantic evening
sky over the lake but unfortunately no romance.
Wednesday
Still fine but beginning to cloud over, and we shall have
rain before nightfall. I have just blistered both my hands
by helping the busman to pump up a tyre with a dud
pump, which is annoying, as I shan’t be able to ride for
several days. The only other people staying here are a
couple of Dutch schoolmarms, intelligent, well dressed, and
attractive, a great contrast to the English variety. They
have seen the PfeflFermlihle, I’m glad to say, and were very
impressed. By the way, I’ve finished that sketch with the
goose for Therfese. I haven’t got a copy as it’s appearing in
the next volume of New Writings but I’ll send you a proof
copy as soon as it comes. I hope it will suit her.
R^kjavih^ Sunday, August 9th
It’s a very long time since I added anything to this
letter, but I have been absorbed in the Byron letter. I’ve
finished a draft of the first canto and bits of the second
and third. My trouble is that the excitement of doing a
kind of thing I’ve never tried to do before keeps making
me think it’s better and funnier than it is, which is the
reverse of what I usually find.
I drove over last Sunday from Egilsstadur in the farmer’s
car to Seydisf jordur, where there was a sport-fest. The far-
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W. H. A. to E. M. A. — No. 2
mer and his wife have been very good to me. He is a power
in the new farmers’ party, which represents the richer ones,
who want to lower wages and increase the price of meat.
For the J&rst time in my life I have become a wireless fan.
I suppose it is due to being alone in a foreign country.
I listen to everything from England, even the cricket
matches and the Stock Exchange quotations. I wish I
knew how things were really going in Spain. Do write and
tell me if you know anything authentic.
There was still a lot of snow on the hills roxmd Seydis-
fjordur, really deep drifts in places and snow bridges over
the streams. The sport-fest was a primitive affair. Some
part singing by middle-aged men in blue suits with brass
buttons which was barely audible, male and female high
jumping, and a swimming race in a shallow and very dirty-
looking pond. I decided to stay in the town till Wednes-
day, when the Nova was due to arrive — ^by which I’ve
come round the north back to Reykjavik — and put up at
the home for decayed old ladies. The landlady had
travelled a little and was snobbishly pleased to see me; but
spobbish or not, she was kindness itself, and kept making
dishes that she thought I should like — ^pies and French
salads. Among her collection of post-cards was a remark-
able diagram of the Icelandic mountains, which I stole, as
I want to reproduce it in the book. Half the inmates were
in bed dying, but those that were up were odd enough. An
old postman and his wife crippled with arthritis, a lady
who has fits of violent mania and paper tearing, but un-
fortunately not while I was there, a dipsomaniac, and an
old man with the face of a saint who has a month to live
(cancer). He has been a servant all his life to a farmer’s
widow who never paid his wages, made him sleep on the
floor, and whenever he had any new clothes said ‘Those
are too good for you. What do you want with fine things
like that?’ and gave them away.
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W. H. A. to E. M. A. — No. 2
The only comedian in Iceland arrived and gave a per-
formance in a tent, patter songs and the Ruth Draper kind
of imitations. As far as I could judge he was rather good.
The audience howled with pleasure. While I was wander-
ing about in the early hours of the morning waiting for
the Nova^ I ran into him. He was rather tight. He gave me
a copy of his book of songs and told me many times how
wonderful he was.
The boat was almost empty. There was a yomig Ameri-
can who had just taken his law finals and was having his
last fling in Europe, one of those Americans who read
everything, from poetry to anthropology and economics,
with apparently no preferences; and a Norwegian fish
merchant of twenty-four (looking nineteen) who runs his
own business, and tells me you can’t trust the Icelandic
business man a yard.
I find voyages so boring that I can hardly remember a
thing. The discipline was not aggressive and we coidd
wander on to the bridge whenever we liked. The captain
was charming and told us all about his children and their
illnesses. He has only once got off the boat to go on shore
in Iceland and that was to have a bath. He has a stock
phrase:T must’nt spoil my girlish figure.’ There was a selfish
little English gentleman of independent means at Aku-
reyri who said, apropos of Spain, ‘Why can’t these
foreigners behave themselves. It’s sickening. You can’t
travel anywhere nowadays without running into trouble,’
and told me the French had no sense of discipline.
There were delicious pickled pigs’ trotters to eat at
dinner. And that’s about all I remember except the whal-
ing station at Talkneifjordur. O no it isn’t. I had a night-
mare after reading a siUy book on spiritualism. I woke up
sweating and wrote it down there and then in the middle
of the night, but now I can hardly decipher what I wrote.
I was in hospital for an appendix. There was somebody
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W. H. A. to E. M. A. — No. 2
there with green eyes and a terrif5nng affection for me. He
cut off the arm of an old lady w’ho was going to do me an
injury. I explained to the doctors about him but they were
inattentive, though presently I realized that they were
very concerned about his bad influence over me. I decide
to escape from the hospital, and do so after looking in
a cupboard for something, I don’t know what. I get to a
station, squeeze between the carriages of a train, down a
corkscrew staircase and out under the legs of some boys*
and girls. Now my companion has turned up with his
three brothers (it may have been two). One, a smooth-
faced, fine fingemailed blonde, is more reassuring. They
tell me that they never leave anyone they like and that
they often choose the timid. The name of the frightening
one is Giga (in Icelandic Giguris a crater) which I associate
with the name Marigold and have a vision of pursuit like
a book illustration and I think related to the long red-
legged scissor man in Shochheaded Peter. The scene changes
to a derelict factory by moonlight. The brothers are there,
and my father. There is a great banging going on which
they teU me is caused by the ghost of an old aunt who lives
in a tin in the factory. Sure enough the tin, which resembles
my mess tin, comes bouncing along, and stops at our feet,
falling open. It is full of hard-boiled eggs. The brothers are
very selfish and seize them, and only my father gives me
half his.
I wish I could describe things well, for a whale is the
most beautiful animal I have ever seen. It combines the
fascination of something alive, enormous, and gentle, with
the functional beauties of modem machinery. A seventy-
ton one was lying on the slip-way Hke a large and very
dignified duchess being got ready for the ball by beetles.
To see it tom to pieces with steam winches and cranes is
enough to make one a vegetarian for life.
In the lounge the wireless was playing ^I want to be bad’
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W. H. A. to E. M. A. — No. 2
and ‘Eat an apple every day’, Dowastairs the steward’s
canary chirped incessantly. The sun was out; in the
bay, surrounded by buoys and gulls, were the semi-sub-
merged bodies of five dead whales: and down the slip-way
ran a constant stream of blood, staining the water a deep
red for a distance of fifty yards. Someone whistled a tune.
A bell suddenly clanged and everyone stuck their spades
in the carcase and went off for lunch. The body remained
alone in the sun, the flesh still steaming a little. It gave one
an extraordinary vision of the cold controlled ferocity of
the human species.
I got back here this afternoon about tea-time, and have
been trying to read through my enormous pile of corre-
spondence. I hope to get back to England about the middle
of September. Louis has arrived but is still out seeing the
Great Geysir. Now I have to make arrangements for this
Bryanston party who arrive at the end of the week.
Michael is coming with them and I hope he will stay
on with Louis and me. It will be nice having some
company for a change. To-morrow I have to give an
interview to the press. I’m enclosing some oddments which
may interest you; the fairy story which I came across again
here used to be my favourite when I was small and my father
used to read it to me. If it hadn’t been for this story I don’t
suppose I should be here now.
W.
Proverbs
A step-child will never get so well into the bosom but
the feet will hang out.
Ale is another man.
Better drink from a beaker than from bent palms.
Better turn back while the car can run.
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W. H. A. to E. M. A. — No. 2
Between Mends a narrow creek; between relations a
wide fjord.
Bridals for yotmg, barrows for old.
Dull edge and point should only carve soft meat.
Every man likes the smell of his own farts.
Fear not raven at rest, nor ragged old man.
Folk are found even over the fells.
Gifts should be handed, not hurled.
He that falls will seldom fatten.
If mending ^vill do, why cut off.
It’s hard to bring many heads under one hat.
It is merely a transition, said the fox, when they flayed
him alive.
Land is ruled by Kp, sea by hand.
Love your neighbour but let his gate stand still.
Many a person thinks me like himself.
Many meet who made no tryst.
Many secrets are hidden in a fog.
Many teU of St. Olaf who never saw him.
Men fight by day, devils by night.
• No one becomes a bishop without a beating.
One must cultivate the oak under which one has to
live.
Only those who have it can splash the skyr about.
Pissing in his shoe keeps no man warm for long.
Shameless is the robber that first seeks a settlement.
Tend the sapliag; cut down the old oak.
The best muck is the mould that falls from the master’s
shoes.
The child brought up at home who has been nowhere,
knows nothing.
The haddock never wanders wide, but it has the same
spot by its side.
The meanest guest has keenest eye.
The oak gets what another tree loses.
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r. H. A. to E. M. A.— No. 2
The water is deep indeed for the old mare when the
young foal has to swim.
The wolf has made firiends before now of fighting swine.
They can’t all have the bishop for their imcle.
Too bland is a blemish; too bluff greater.
Gellwor
Near the end of the Roman Catholic times a certain
married couple lived at a farm named HvoU, situated on a
firth in the east part of the cotmtry. The farmer was well
to do, and wealthy in sheep and cattle. It was commonly
reported that a female troE Eved on the south side of the
firth, who was supposed to be mild and not given to mischief.
One Christmas Eve, after dark, the farmer went out and
never returned again, and aU search for him was in vain.
After the man’s disappearance one of the servants took
the management of the farm, but was lost in the same
maimer, after dark on the Christmas Eve foUowing. After
this the widow of the farmer determined to remove all her
goods from the house and live elsewhere for the winter,
leaving only the sheep and herds under the charge of
shepherds, and returning to pass the summer there. As
soon as the winter approached she made preparations for
leaving HvoE, until the next spring, and set the herdsmen
to take care of the sheep and cattle, and feed them during
the cold season.
For home use she always kept four cows, one of which
had just had a calf.
Two days before her intended departure, a woman came
to h^ in h^ dreams, who was dressed in an old-fashioned
dress of poor appearance. The stranger addressed her with
these words: ‘Your cow has just calved, and I have no hope
of getting noxuishment for my chEdren, unless you will
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W. H. A. to E. M. A. — No. 2
every day, when you deal out the rations, put a share for
me in a jug in the dairy. I know that your intention is to
move to another farm in two days, as you dare not live
here over Christmas, for you know not what has become
of your husband and of the servant, on the last two
Christmas Eves. But I must tell you that a female troll
lives in the opposite mountains, herself of mild temper,
but who, two years ago, had a child of such curious appe-
tite and disposition that she was forced to provide fresh
human flesh for it each Christmas. If, however, you will do
willingly for me what I have asked you to do, I wiU give
you good advice as to how you may get rid of the troll
from this neighbourhood.’
With these words the woman vanished. When the
widow awoke she remembered her dream, and getting up,
went to the dairy, where she iBlled a wooden jug with new
milk and placed it on the appointed spot. No sooner had
she done so than it disappeared. The next evening the jug
stood again in the same place, and so matters went on till
Christmas.
' On Christmas Eve she dreamt again that the woman
came to her with a friendly salutation, and said, ‘Surely
you are not inquisitive, for you have not yet asked to
whom you give milk every day. I will tell you. I am an elf-
woman, and live in the little hill near your house. You have
treated me well all through the winter, but henceforth I
will ask you no more for milk, as my cow had yesterday a
calf. And now you must accept the little gift which you
will find on the shelf where you have been accustomed to
place the jug for me; and I intend, also, to deliver you
from the danger which awaits you to-morrow night. At
midnight you will awake and feel yourself irresistihly
urged to go out, as if something attracted you; do not
struggle against it, but get up and leave the house. Outside
the door you will find a giantess standing, who will seize
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r. H. A. to E. M. A.— No. 2
you and carry you in her arms across your grass-field,
stride over the river, and make off with you in the direc-
tion of the mountains in which she lives. When she has
carried you a little way jtom the river, you must cry,
‘‘What did I hear then?” and she will immediately ask you,
“What did you hear?” You must answer, “I heard some-
one cry, ‘Mamma Gellivor, Mamma Gellivor!’ ” which she
will think very extraordinary, for she knows that no
mortal ever yet heard her name. She will say, “Oh, I sup-
pose it is that naughty child of mine,” and will put you
down and run to the mountains. But in the meantime,
while she is engaged with you, I will he in the mountain
and will thump and pinch her child without mercy.
Directly she has left you, turn your back upon the moxm-
tam and run as fast as you possibly can towards the
nearest farm along the river banks. When the troll comes
back and overtakes you, she will say, “Why did you not
stand still, you wretch?” and will take you again in her
arms and stride away with you. As soon as you have gone
a little way you must cry again, “What did I hear then?”
She will ask as at first, “What did you hear?” Then you
shall reply again, “I thought I heard someone calling
‘Mamma Gellivor, Mamma Gellivor!’ ” on which she will
fling you down as before, and run towards the mountain.
And now you must make all speed to reach the nearest
church before she can catch you again, for if she succeed
in doing so she will treat you horribly in her fury at finding
that I have pinched and thumped her child to death. If,
however, you fail in getting to the chmrch in time, I will
help you.’
When, after this dream, the widow awoke, the day had
dawned, so she got up and went to the shelf upon which the
jug was wont to stand. Here she found a large bundle,
which contained a handsome dress and girdle and cap, all
beautifciny embroidered.
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W. H. A. to E. M. A. — No. 2
Atout midniglit on Christmas Day, when all the rest of
the farm people at Hvoll were asleep, the widow felt an
irresistible desire to go out, as the elf woman had warned
her, and she did so. Directly she had passed the threshold,
she felt herself seized and lifted high in the air by the arms
of the gigantic troU, who stalked off with her over the
river and towards the mountain. Everything turned out
exactly as the elf had foretold, until the giantess flung
down her burden for the second time, and the widow made
speed to reach the church. On the way, it seemed to her as
if someone took hold of her arms and helped her along.
Suddenly she heard the sound of a tremendous land-slip
on the troll’s mountain, and turning round saw in the
clear moonlight the giantess striding furiously towards her
over the morasses. At this sight she would have fainted
with fear had she not felt herself lifted from the ground
and hurried through the air into the church, the door of
which closed immediately behind her. It happened that
the priests were about to celebrate early mass, and all the
people were assembled. Directly after she came into the
church the bells began to ring, and the congregation heard
the sound of some heavy fall outside. Looking ftom one of
the windows they saw the troll hurry away from the noise
of the bells, and, in her flight, stumble over the wall of the
churchyard, part of which fell. Then the troll said to it,
‘Never stand again,’ and hurrying away took up her abode
in another mountain beyond the confines of the parish of
Hvoll.
155
Chapter XII
Hetty to Nancy
Gullfoss.
August 17th. (Monday I think, hut you can’t be sure in
these parts.)
Dearest Nancy,
How are you and I hope you are liking the Dolomites
—it was the Dolomites, wasn’t it — and what about your
new girl-friend? I thought she soimded sweet but that may
be just by contrast. With the last I mean; I warned you
about her all along and what can one expect of someone
who reads botany? You keep to the Arts, darling, though
in Cambridge I suppose even the Arts are just a teeny bit
marked with the beast — all this psychology and politics.
Now don’t you go and get political, because that would be
the last straw. The hammer and sickle are all right where
they belong but they don’t suit lady dons. Oh dear, I am
writing under such difficulties — ^that was Maisie gave me
a kick then. Not intentional; it’s the size of them you know.
Maisie Reynolds, in case you think I mean Maisie Gold-
stein. Well, I am writing in a frightful tent made by
Maisie’s sister-in-law when she was convalescent. She
must have been very ill, I think. We are going round a
thing called the Langjokull; if you want to pronounce it
you must move your mouth both ways at once, draw your
tongue through your uvula, and pray to St. David of W ales.
156
Hetty to Nancy
Lang means long and jokuQ means glacier; depressing
don’t you think? Why we are doing this I can’t imagine
and if we had to do it, why^ oh why like this? Here am I
with Maisie in a tent and on our left side is another tent
and on our right side is another tent. And what do you
think are in those tents? SCHOOLGIRLS! Would you
believe it? Robin will think I am returning to my vomit.
He already holds it a great blot on my character, my hav-
ing been a school-marm. Well, Maisie said it would be
much cheaper to have these girls along. They were all
fixed up with guides, you see. So I in a moment of weak-
ness agreed to it. Four girls — Ruth, Anne, Mary, and
Stella — and a marm called Margery Greenhalge. They are
really quite possible, poor dears, but I mean, I mean^
darlings does one come to Iceland for this? It’s all very well
for Maisie; it’s copy for her, she’s writing a new book
about a schoolmistress who hanged herself, but when this
pack of girls gets in The Great Open Spaces goodness
knows what is going to happen. Sprained ankles is the
least I should think (they’ve none of them ever ridden
horses; nor have I for that matter). Talking of the G.O.
Spaces Maisie says they are a closed book. I have been
wondering if this would be considered an epigram because
I couldn’t see that it was very funny and Maisie is sup-
posed to be witty, but then it is different in London, where
people have always been drinking sherry before you say
anything to them. It is a pity you don’t know Maisie
though or you would see the joke of all this. Which brings
me back to this tent. M. says it is my own fault for not
bringing a tent of my own. Hers is a minute conical a ff a ir
stuck up on a collapsible, not to say collapsing, umbrella-
handle which comes (very much so) to pieces, three of
them, and one of them we lost of course, it being already
getting dark (Heavens what grammar!) so when you get
it up in the end it is not more than five foot across but that
157
Hetty to Nancy
gives you quite a wrong impression of ampKtude because,
as I said, it is a cone and it narrows so quickly that even
when Maisie and I are on our bands and knees we can only
talk to each other round the back of each other’s heads —
do you see what I mean — and goodness knows how we are
going to sleep in it. M. says it would be all right if she were
by herseK as she always sleeps in the foetal position but
sleeping in the foetal position means curling herself roimd
the axle-tree (that is the word, isn’t it) and I am just not
going to have Maisie encroaching on my half of ground-
sheet, it’s not as if she were petite after all, stiQ I have to
try and be nice about it as Maisie has been rather vexed
with me. You see, she never made it clear that she ex-
pected me to turn up for this expedition eqmpped with
one of everything — one fork, one knife, one spoon, one
cup, one plate — so naturally I came with none of every-
thing because I thought they were provided by the com-
pany. But it seems not. I must try and become more Uke
Miss Greenhalge, who has organised her little flock beauti-
fully, they all have cups and knives and their tents look
just like tents, which is more than Maisie’s does. I doiji’t
mind the shape or the colour so much though Maisie’s
scores a blob on both but what really galls me is that the
girls’ tents have doors which lace up all snug and comfy
whereas this thing has a large triangxdar hole in it open to
the breeze and nothing to cover it. Maisie has brought a
very flashy pneumatic mattress with her, yellow on one
side and blue on the other, she looked Uke something out
of Brueghel blowing it up but it does look definitely com-
fortable; I have only got a second-hand sleeping-bag, Miss
Greenhalge calls it a flea-bag (Miss Greenhalge is one of
those people who when in Rome insist on talking Roman)
my bag was left behind by an explorer — doesn’t that make
one feel the real thing — and it had a corkscrew in it which
seemed odd but Maisie says nothing need surprise you from
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Hetty to Nancy
an explorer and she is going to write a book about explorers
some time called The Pole of Solitude. I am writing this
by a candle. Maisie is holding it. The night outside is
damp. Doubly damp in fact, (a) because there is a Scotch
mist, (6) because in our efforts to do the right thing from
the start we have pitched camp on the edge of a ravine
and in the spray of a large waterfall. This waterfall is called
GuUfoss. I am told that foss is also the Icelandic for bicycle
because when they introduced the bicycle the natives
could think of nothing except a waterfall sufficiently
velocitous to compare it with. Anyhow it is a very fine
waterfall as waterfalls go but, as Maisie says, they don’t
go far. One of the girls, Mary, has a cine-camera and took
some photos of it in the twilight. Maisie is getting tired of
holding the candle but I must just get down the events of
the day for you. This morning we met our girls in Reyk-
javik and took them buying oilskins. Miss G. wanted also
to do the sights but we dissuaded her. There is only one
real sight in Reykjavik and that is a museum of sculpture
by a man called Einar Jonsson. The worst sculpture I have
ev.er seen in my life, and that is saying a lot. First of all all
the pieces are in plaster and you know how filthy plaster
gets, secondly they are all, or nearly all, enormous^ thirdly
they are symbolic. And the symbolism, darling, is the sort
they used to have in the Academy before someone put
their foot down or was it the effect of the war? You know
— ^Time pulling off the boots of Eternity with one hand
while keeping the wolf from the door with the other. The
only one which didn’t seem to be symbolic was Queen
Victoria on an elephant; a welcome piece of naturalism as
Maisie remarked. So we didn’t take the girls to this cor-
rupting spectacle but they had a look roimd the shops of
the great city Reykjavik and most of the things are im-
ported from England, raspberry - coloured baths and
mauve lavabos, but there was one window of home-made
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Hetty to Nancy
Icelandic pottery which, for some odd reason (or perhaps
influ^ced by Einar Jonsson’s Victoria) consists mainly
of mantdpiece figures of elephants. This reminds me that
we asked someone why Beatrix Potter shouldn’t be done
in Icelandic and they said, ‘But the children wouldn’t
know any of the animals.’ Which is true — ^frogs, squirrels,
rabbits — ^you just don’t find those things here. Well, all
the time we were looking at these novelties of civilisation
(comparative novelties here though I even saw some
Elizabeth Arden preparations and also heard some chil-
dren sing in g The Music Goes Round and Aroimd m Ice-
landic which also no doubt is culture pace Hitler who
wants to reclaim this island and will no doubt substitute
the Eddas for the Lutheran pray erbook) Maisie, who is an
indefatigable interviewer, was interviewing a Social Demo-
crat whom I saw at parting, a lost soul M. says — ^was the
first socialist here and is ending in sorry compromise. All
I noticed was the colour scheme of his hands — dark
brown to deep orange, strong black hair on them, and very
light pink fingernails. So we shook off the dust of that city
and took our bus for GuUfoss. What giggling, my dear!
The bus was a combination bus and lorry. In the bus-part
sat ourselves — a merry little company — and in the lorry-
part sat our packs and food. The food is much but odd —
10 kilograms of smoked mutton (HangikfU in Icelandic,
you’d never guess how that’s pronoimced). Miss Green-
halge by the way doesn’t use the word Icelandic, she calls
it the local lingo, 10 long loaves of brown bread, brick-
hard, the sort of thing you find in Egyptian tombs, a vast
dried mat of Hardfiskux (dried fish), two enormous slabs
of cheese (4 kilos each I thipk), 10 large tins of mutton.
It seems a lot but we have to feed the guides as well — ^two
guides, nice men but they have no English. Well, as we
bussed it, we turned aside to look at a small geysir called
Grylla which spouts of itself every two hours through a
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Hetty to Nancy
small round hole in a flat stone. Of course we didn’t know
when the two hours were due so we had to wait. There
were sundry hot springs steaming away in the valley and
Maisie who Hkes to play at being Every Girl Her Own
Billican, insisted on making tea in one of them. Needless
to say it was unspeakable as the springs are full of sulphur.
The geysir was better value, it went off just as we were
beginning to despair of it, a sweet little thing so slhn and
girlish, the girls devised a game of throwing a tin cup on
to it, the jet of steam works like a catapult and you shotdd
have heard how Miss Greenhalge laughed. She laughs
conscientiously and seismicaUy. She is very large, very red,
and bespectacled (lenses as thick as beer-bottles). The
girls among themselves call her La Paloma, you know how
romantic they are in these schools. In Reykjavik I foimd
a letter from a little girl called Elsie comparing me to a
whole string of heroines, the first being Lucrezia Borgia
and the last being Elizabeth Barrett Browning. So it looks
like a week of pussy-talk in the lava-fields. Not that Miss
Greenhalge would encourage that sort of thing. On the
contrary she believes in making her girls behave like
public schoolboys — I mean as public schoolboys behave
in Ian Hay or in the Mind of God. She wants to see their
stuffing, has been reading the latest Peter Fleming. They
are all rather in trepidation about their horses. The guides
tell us that the last ladies they took this way fell off their
horses and all but refused to get on again. Which is a bad
lookout when there is no human habitation for thirty
miles or so and no possible means of transport and no food
except an occasional bilberry. We met our horses for the
first time in the gloaming, real little ducks, 17 in all —
7 for us, 2 for the guides, 3 reserves, 5 pack-horses. Maisie
fancies herself quite Melton Mowbray now as she rode her
first pony several weeks ago. One of the girls, however,
Stella, apparently rides at school and even knows how to
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Hetty to Nancy
jump. She is a flashy Kttle girl and is the only one with
real leather liding-boots, not that they will do her any
good as in Iceland you keep riding through rivers and you
need a good honest Dunlop. I am sorry to say that I come
last in point of attire because whereas everyone else has
riding-breeches I have only got a pair of hopcloth beach-
trousers I bought in the South of France. They are some-
what baggy to squeeze into one’s gumboots apart from
being claret-coloured but why buy new clothes just for a
week’s Baden-Powelling? Maisie by the way is sleeping in
this tent in pyjamas and was very shocked because I got
into my sleeping-bag without imdressmg. To see Maisie
struggling out of her undies in two square foot of space
makes you realize what built the British Empire. She has
been reproving me incidentally for mine — ^not my Empire,
my undies — she says that to wear crepe-de-chine panties
may be all right for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer but it won’t do
roimd the LangjoktiU. But then Maisie, who is a shirt-and-
tie girl herself, is all for the approximation of the sexes;
she says that to emphasise one’s femaleness is a relic of
barbarism like men wearing beards, and that if I do no-
thing else on this trip it is essential that I shall reduce my
bust measurement. Which reminds me that the landscape
to-day was rather nice from our bus, at one point there was
a perfectly lovely vista all in stratas — ^first brilliant green
grass, almost emerald, then a bank of pink clouds I sup-
pose of dust, then blue serrated crags, and last but not
least a glacier floating in the distance, milky-blue — ^you
could hardly believe it was real. But what worries me is
that they have no goats. Plenty of fine fat sheep and very
clean compared with English ones, but ne’er a goat not
even of the littlest. It is like the Irish over cheese. I firmly
bdieve that if the I.F.S. would only (a) make cheese and
(fe) eat it, they would (a) improve their budget and (6)
modify their characters — ^become more pacific like the
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Dutch.. Q.E.D, and what was all the fuss about? M. says
she is tired of holding the candle so will write you more
to-morrow, darling, provided IVe not broken my collar-
bone. Sweet dreams in the Dolomites.
August 18th
Darling, darlings darling, it is very lucky your poor
friend Hetty is aHve. The worst night I have had since
Aunt Evelyn walked in her sleep — ^you remember, the
fire-extinguisher business. I had great difficulty to start
with getting to sleep. For why? (1) Because we had
pitched the tent with our heads running downhill, (2)
because we had pitched it on bilberry bushes, which kept
prickling me through the groimdsheet, (3) because Maisie
would get more and more foetal, so that in the end her
feet were playing an absolute barrage on my tummy. All
things, however, are possible and I did get to sleep in the
end only to be woken by a clammy thing on my face like
some very unpleasant beauty treatment — ^you know when
they plaster you with eggs and whey and things — ^which
tilrned out to be the tent or more precisely the inner cover
of the tent because there are two. There was a j&ightful
noise of rain outside and the whole tent was caving in
under it, Maisie was swearing and saying she was going
down with aU hands. I took the ostrich’s course and hid
my head in my sleeping-bag. Not that that was unduly
dry and the foot-end of it was sopping because that was
where the door of the tent came. When I popped out my
head again, the tent had become very much smaller
(Heaven knows it was small enough to start with) and was
closing in on us like something in Edgar Allan Poe. So I
cowered round the pole in the middle and Maisie and I got
entangled like a pair of wet tennis-shoes when one packs
them in a hurry. And the rain fell 40 days and 40 nights.
Or so it seemed. And the tent got smaller and smaller.
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For once in my life I was glad to get up at six — ^that’s what
you do on these expeditions. The rain had stopped but the
air was full of waterfall. M. and I were very angry to learn
that all the others had had a dry night and we made a
surly breakfast in our oilskins, M. precariously cooking
some coffee on her rather undependable stove. By the time
breakfast was over there was actually some sxm, in fact the
day looked promising. There was much complication over
the packing of the food panniers because when a pony
carries a pannier each side they have to be exactly the
same weight. It sounds easy but it isn’t — ^who knows the
relative weights of cheese and hardfiskur? While the
others were taking a morning look at the rainbow spray of
GuUfoss Maisie and I had our first lapse from esprit de
corps and sneaked into the little tin house which caters for
trippers where we had some very good coffee. After all
there won’t be anywhere to buy anything for a week. Then
we sorted our horses, Maisie taking the best, a sturdy white
beast with solid pillar-like legs (Ranelagh standards don’t
go here) and off we started. Off we started indeed, bang up
the side of the valley; if you have never been on a horSe
before it does seem a little hard to start on the perpendi-
cular, I was scared stiff. And when we got to the top they
started trotting — simply terrifying and very very painful
— I think my horse must do what is called a brock which
even the professionals don’t Hke. In any case their trot is
too short for one to do any rising in one’s saddle so we had
to ride like the cavalry (sic) and I fully sympathised with
Mary who kept telling the barren plateau that her legs
were on fire in tones of bravado mingled with abject
panic. We had a respite however when the pack-horses
got lost. There is one very naughty white pack-horse who
thought he would go home to Geysir where he came from
and turning to the left at a fork went flat out for home
before anyone realised what was happening. So the two
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guides and Maisie and Rutt and Anne followed him while
the rest of us loitered along the right road at a walk and
comparatively painlessly. In single file most of the time,
the road being a mere track through stony deserts rather
reminiscent of Hollywood. The day opened out and there
were highly spectacular views on the left, intense blue
amethyst moimtains castellating the glacier. There ought
to be another glacier on the right but we couldn’t see it.
Eventually the others came back with the pack-horses *
and about 1.0 we stopped for a rest at one of the rare
patches of grass, taking off the horses’ saddles and packs
and I expected some food but it seems that that isn’t done.
Stella showed off a little by quite superfluously adjusting
her horse’s bit while the rest of us creakingly lowered our-
selves on to the welcome turf. But very very shortly we
started again and this time we did some cantering. Canter-
ing is even more perilous but not so painful as trotting.
Miss Greenhalge was riding a heavy black pony looking
rather like something in a pantomime; you felt that she
might just as well do the walking and the pony trot
between her legs. She (Miss G.) is really very large indeed.
(Maisie says that it is psychological being so tall and that
tall people are running away from life. Hence, at the other
end, Napoleon.) Well, gradually we came up to the hillg on
the left which flank the glacier and having passed a snappy
little picture-postcard gorge we encamped about 5,0 on a
spongy piece of grass where we hobbled our horses accord-
ing to the guides’ instructions (the guides are exceedingly
nice not to say long-suffering), turned them adrift and
began putting up our tents. It was then that Maisie and I
made a scientific discovery. This tent of Maisie’s has an
outside cover and an inside cover. Well it seems that if
you don’t want to get wet you mustn’t let these two touch.
Now last night we went out of our way to peg them down
absolutely flush. It seemed so much neater but that was why
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we got so wet. The tent is still pretty clammy by the way.
Having put up the tents we ate a large meal. The girls are
getting himgry and were quite williag to try the despised
smoked mutton. Smoked, not cooked mind you; you put
your teeth in a hunk and then haul away the hunk in both
fists. After that Greenhalge took some of the girls up
BMfell, which is a craggy mountain on the left, while M.
and I diverted ourselves more according to our years,
stumping through a marsh on the right of our camp in
order to inspect the gorge of the river Hvitd. The gorge
like all Icelandic gorges is perpendictdar and composed of
that beastly breaking stone. The Hvitd was turbulent and
a most peculiar colour. ‘The putty-coloured gletcher,’
Maisie said appreciatively. We amused ourselves rolling
down stones into it while Maisie told me that her next
novel is to deal with the English colony in Frfijus. As we
picked our way back through the marsh we kept hearing a
single desolate creaking sound — ^Uke a creaking gate as M.
said — ^which it turns out is a plover. This land would
really make a very good setting for HeU, it reminds me of
Gustave Dor6’s illustrations to the Inferno. The sphag-
num moss everywhere gives the effect of ruins and you
can imagine the sotds of wicked philosophers sitting
here and there on the sharp stones, their beards
covered with lichen repenting their false premisses. We
got back before the others, so had to make the coffee or
rather the coffee and cocoa as Ruth can’t drink coffee.
M.’s petrol stove is not all it might be and has to be
ptunped all the time. Greenhalge and the girls came back
from Bldfell, they hadn’t reached the top of course and
what they had was very hard going, all loose shale and
stuff — every three foot forward they slipped two foot
back. We opened another tin of mutton and found it much
better than last night’s; we think it has benefited from its
jolting on horsd)ack. After dinner Greenhalge opened a
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little case and, to Maisie’s horror, began to offer the girls
quinine pills and vegetable laxatives* Maisie has a bee in
her bonnet about laxatives; she thinks her inside knows
best* I was thirsty after all the mutton and went to the
stream for water — ^it is so cold that it seems to lacerate
your gums. Greenhalge is a good sort really, always ready
to lend you a knife or a cup and she does all the washing
up. The girls don’t do anything much in that line excepting
possibly Anne who is going to be house-prefect next term.
Anne is the best-looking though she will be better looking
when she has learned not to pout. She probably has a nice
little temper on occasions and does a power of grumbling.
Her intonation and vowel sounds are just what you expect
from a nice British schoolgirl. Ruth, I should say, is the
most intelligent. She says hardly anything but is obviously
terribly noticing and puts herself out for nobody. She has
just got five credits in the School Certificate and ought to
go far. Stella, who as I said is the horsewoman of the
party, is conceited but perhaps a little pathetic. She talks
a great deal with a lot of wasted emphasis, wears a vulgar
but no doubt expensive bracelet, and altogether gives the
effect of a cheeky terrier pup that has not been quite pro-
perly trained. Mary is an odd girl, neurotic, and capable
of quite astonishing ineptitude. She puts questions to
Greenhalge like an irrepressible child — ^‘Why are the
mountains that shape, Bliss Greenhalge?’ ‘How many kilo-
metres are there in a mile. Bliss Greenhalge?’ and so on
and so on indefinitely. She has a tight little mouth, at
least she makes it tight through nervousness, which is
rather incongruous with her figure, for she is a strapping
wench and would look all right if she could stop putting
her hands to her face and get the dolefiil expression out of
her eyes. She has a nice nature and thanks one even super-
fluously when one does anything for her. She seems to
enjoy herself in spite of her fear of the horses and gives
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vent to her enjoyment with a quaint mouse-like heartiness.
She shares the large tent with Greenhalge and Anne while
Stella and Ruth have the little tent. Talking of tents
Maisie and I are much more comfortable this evening and
I have invented a scheme for the candle which would do
credit to a Girl Guide. Perfectly simple: you take an ordi-
nary country shoe which laces up, insert the candle in the
laced part, and fasten it there tightly. The shoe is Maisie’s.
Maisie says that this tent inside by candlelight looks like
a Stratford-on-Avon set for Julius Caesar. Maisie is smok-
ing like a tramp-steamer. I tell her she is one of those
people like Midas; everything she touches turns to
cigarettes. I have been explaining to her that she will feel
the effects of it in ten years’ time when she is forty. She in
her turn has been lecturing me on marriage. She is afraid
that I will become servile. I tell her that Robin is much
too vague for anyone to be servile to him but she main-
tains that that makes him all the more dangerous and that
I shall have to spend my time running after him with his
season ticket. M. says only unintelligent women ought to
get married. She would prefer me to have a career like
yours, darling, but she forgets I am not qualified. Not that
personally I could breathe if I lived in Canobridge. All
those coffee-parties you have with people talking about
Marx. And the intrigues^ darlings the intrigues! No, it’s
marriage for me unless Robin thinks better of it. I
shouldn’t blame him, poor dear, but I don’t think he will.
It’s curious one should attract people when one isn’t
really very attractive. How do you explain it? I really
must go to sleep now, I feel a heroic stiffness in my joints
and it seems highly doubtful whether I shall be able to
mount a horse to-morrow. Maisie seems to be asleep with
a cigarette in her mouth. Her pneumatic bed is sighing
like something out of A, E. Housman. I shouldn’t be sur-
prised if it’s flat by to-morrow. Good-night, darling.
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Hetty to Nancy
August 19th
To-day started rottenly but was a good day afterwards.
We had to pull down our tents and breakfast in icy rain.
I had brought no gloves and felt my fingers were going to
fall off. The girls looked none too happy though we didn’t
actually have any tears. We decided that we should all
change horses from yesterday and that each day we should
take them in rotation in order of age. This meant that I
got the One Maisie had yesterday, which is the star horse*
and goes like the wind. It is pure white all over though
Stella says it is technicafly a grey. But if you call a white
horse grey, what do you call a grey horse? Anyhow this
horse was a goer and for the jfirst time I felt the joys of
horsemanship, though to start with I was very much
alarmed especially when it opened its throttle on the edge
of a precipice. We had one terrific gallop (canter actually)
down a long hill and across a plain of ashes, a dust-storm
whipping our faces so that we were riding blind. I turned
my face to the left to avoid the grit in my eyes and there
saw suddenly a shining sea tilted obhquely upwards,
patching the sim. Like something in the Ancient and
Modern hymnbook. First I thought it was water and could
not understand why it stayed put. It was the icefield. I
hked it exceedingly. About mid-day we stopped for a rest
and Greenhalge doled out chocolate — ^four tiny squares
per head. I could hardly prevent myself asking for more;
it is most instructive to note one’s mental unadaptability,
one just can’t imagine there won’t be a shop further on
where one can buy all the chocolate one wants. As a
matter of fact the next place we came to, Hvitanes, was
very civilised. It is where I am writing now — ^in a very
swish hut of corrugated iron buttressed all along the sides
with growing tmrf and the walls lined inside with match-
boarding. Near by is a little tin house with a man in it
whom you pay one krdna for your night’s lodging and he
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Hetty to Nancy
sells you cigarettes. We arrived at this blissful spot about
2.0 and after a cold meal were marshalled once more on
horses to go and see the glacier which runs down the
mountain opposite into an attractive lake called Hvita-
vatn. Unfortunately I did not have the white horse again
but one of the reserves or pack-horses and a very dim
beast he was and needed a deal of slapping. We had an
ama 2 dng trek across the flat grassland to the north of the
lake which is nothing but a delta of broad, rapid, and ice-
cold rivers. We had to ford them one after another and
how the horses stand it I can’t imagine. Anne and I had
the worst horses and were left a long way behind flounder-
ing ignominiously and hoping the horses wouldn’t fall
down with us. Following a devious route we crossed our
last river (about the ninety-ninth) and left the horses on
the further bank under a steep cliff of shale. Which same
we began to climb and clambering up that sort of thing
in gumboots is, I may tell you, no Sunday-school treat.
What was more, we had no idea why we were going up it.
The guide can’t talk English, you see. Well, why we were
going up it was in order to have a close-up of the glaciey
but glaciers have very bad complexions, and for myself
I would much rather see them from a distance. Green-
halge, Ruth, and I occupied ourselves by climbing a little
conical hill to get a wider view of the countryside which
was certaiiJy very beautiful. We also saw a bit of ice fall
off the edge of the glacier. On our ride home we saw about
thirty young horses running through the grassland at
their pleasure. Where ignorance is bliss . . . Little do they
know that in a futinre season they wiU have to carry
people like us about. On arriving at our hut Maisie at once
began to cook dinner. She said it was qmte time we had a
hot meal so she poked about the hut and our luck was in,
for what did she find but a primus stove and a large pan.
So Maisie put the whole contents of one of the tins of
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mutton in the pan and mixed it (against my advice) ivith
water and toiled it on the stove. Oddly enough the result
was very good* I bought some more cigarettes j&rom the
man in the hut who seemed a little amused by us all.
Perhaps they don’t know their Angela Brazil roxmd here.
I notice that the Icelanders in spite of their tough exis-
tence have a certain whimsicality not common among the
other Scandinavians. Perhaps the explanation is that
given by an Icelander in Reykjavik — ^that it’s the Irish in
them which accounts for this. ALfter dinner every girl
washed her own dish but I not having a dish merely rinsed
the grease from my hands in the broad and serene river
that flows between the hut and the mountains. I should
mention that a little further down this river is the most
exquisite convenience, a kind of wooden sentry-box
which projects over the water; I have already visited it
twice; in this barren country such comfort is really lyrical.
After washing up we wrote our names in the Visitors’
Book and all of us except the guides played rummy by
the light of an oil-lamp (unheard-of luxury!) in which
Ruth had all the luck, sitting there saying nothing, with a
pale quiet smile, time after time laying down her cards and
going out. Irritating little girl! Not so irritating as Stella
though, who talked without ceasing. The room got in the
most awftd fug as Greenhalge had allowed the girls to
smoke (give a pawn and take a queen, you know; Green-
halge is all for making men of them) which is all right for
them because they are sleeping upstairs (fancy having an
upstairs!) but not so good for Maisie and me who are
having this room to omrselves. I have just been outside
for a breath of jfiresh air and saw the huge mountain oppo-
site floating on nothing — ^the nothing was of course ice.
There is some talk of another party whom we may meet
on this route — ^N.U.S. I think — gloomy how educational
the place seems to be becoming. I am not sure that I like
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the EngKsh in Iceland. The ones coining over on my boat
were a very odd lot. The second class much nicer than
the first. There was a little cockney confectioner who did
tricks with his false teeth and was reading a book on how
to be a successful writer. Then there were two Welsh Jews
from Birkenhead who had a great many odd bits of
curious knowledge and one of them used to sing The Rose
of Tralee and Die Lorelei; fruity wasn’t the word for it.
There was a young tax-collector from Preston who carried
the Oxford Book of English Verse in his pocket. And there
were half a dozen old schoolmistresses (but they travelled
first) from Manchester who had already gone the pace in
Finland and Russia and Brussels. I wonder what they all
want out of Iceland. Or just to say they have been there?
My bed to-night is on a wooden bench with a mattress
under my sleeping-bag. It being comparatively warm, I
am sleeping in my panties and vest. I will now try if I can
blow out the oil-lamp without getting up for it.
August 20th
Darling, I am nearly dead. Up at six again to-day and
my horse was a demon. And that wicked Maisie who had
it yesterday, never let on about it. It has the brock all
right. When we started this morning the trouble began
with its saddle slithering down under its tummy. These
horses have a deplorable habit of inflating themselves
when you fasten their girths. Well by the time I had
tightened its girth I had to catch up the others, so first I
trotted and then I cantered and really I don’t know which
was the more imcomfortable. Well, when we did catch up
the others, my malicious beast charged straight in among
the pack-horses and gored my leg against one of the
wooden panniers. And after that it ran away with me,
tossing me sky-high in its cantering so that I had to hang
on by the mane and my eyes were streaming with the
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wind in them. ‘If I don’t fall off this horse,’ I said, ‘I shall
be very proud of myself.’ That finished it. We were then
riding along a narrow track sunk in the ground to a depth
of three feet or more — ^the sort of place you ought to pro-
ceed at a walk but where my horse suddenly decided to go
full speed ahead so that my right foot caught in the right
bank of the track and I fell gracefully over its tail with
my foot still in the stirrup. I will say that the horse stood
still tin I disintricated myself. After that we got among
rocks and there we all just had to walk. On our left was a
river in a very narrow gorge, the sort you could jump over
if you were a fool, and the sides moulded into all sorts of
elegant concaves. The mountains beyond it licked down
great tongues of ice and it would all have been very
romantic if I had not felt so sore. We stopped for our mid-
day snack in a pleasant meadow encircled by mountains
and sitting in the shelter of a bank by a little stream ate
smoked mutton and raisins. Maisie, who fancies herself
with a camera, went round taking art shots of people
through each other’s legs. I must say we were well worth
photographing. The cold weather makes us all look much
funnier in our various defences against it. Maisie herself
has taken to wearing a sou’-wester with an old felt hat
fastened on over it with a safety-pin. Her sou’wester is
bright yellow, her oilskin coat is black, and her enormous
gumboots are brown. Wisps of hair straggle down over her
forehead and when she walks she moves like something
that is more at home in the water. Margery Greenhalge
also looks pretty odd. She wears an amazing woollen
helmet with earflaps which combined with her goggles and
general outsizeness makes her look like a piece of Archaic
Greek sculptuary. Stella, goodness knows why, appears to
be wearing a blue and white bathing-cap. Anne has a kind
of a Cossack hat which would suit her as an equestrienne
for Bertram Mills. After our snack, we took our horses by
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the reins and led them up over a very steep and stony
ridge; it is the first time we have done this for as far as they
are concerned they would carry us over a tightrope. At
the top I let the others ride ahead and proceeded at a walk
beside the guides and pack-horses. It was on this occasion
that I thought I saw Greenhalge in the distance and it
turned out to be a cairn. We caught up the advance-guard
in a frightful state of emotion. Anne had cut her finger and
two of the girls were in tears. Greenhalge, redder than
ever, rushed round the pack-horses tearing open all the
panniers for iodine; anyone would have thought the girl
was going to die. Maisie was explaining that you usually
cut your finger because you wanted to — ^Kke making
Spoonerisms she said. Anne did her best to be a lovely
martyr but she did not have the whole house with her as
both the guides and little Hetty were definitely bored.
These queens of the schoolroom begin to think that any-
thing will go. The day was now getting misty and the ride
dreary. I held in my beast and trailed along humbly with
the jingling pack-horses, losing the sense of time. I thought
the ride would never come to an end. But it did. Suddenly
we came over a rise and there was a long and shallow
valley, desolate enough for anyone and smoking away like
the dumping-ground of a great city. I thought the whole
vaUey was on fire but coming closer I saw that the smoke
was trails of steam, dozens of ribbons of steam blowing
from left to right. This was our destination — ^the hot
springs of Hveravellir. It wotdd now be about teatime,
the others had already left their horses by the hut and
were walkmg back to look at the springs. ‘You must see
the hut,’ Maisie shouted to me, ‘it is just like a henhouse.’
And it toos, my dear, but only the sort of henhouse you
would find in a depressed area. The walls are of rough
stone banked outside withjturf, the corrugated iron roof
is also covered with turf; the stone walls inside are unlined
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and the whole place is incredibly damp. There is a nasty
platform to sleep on three foot up from the floor and an-
other platform higher up imder the roof which you reach
hy a ladder. After surveying these apartments I went to
have a look at the springs. A real witches’ laundry with the
horizontal trailers of steam blowing through the mist,
some from little pop-holes in the groimd and others from
quite large pools, most of them circular. Some of these
latter were lovely, might have been invented by Arthur
Rackham — stone basins of highly coloured water varying
from Reckitt’s blue to green, and round the edge yellowish
growths of sulphur. The crust of stone around them seems
only about four inches thick and you expect any moment
to go down like Dathan and Abiram. The water is practi-
cally boiling and the whole valley smells of bad eggs.
Hveravellir was where an eighteenth-century robber made
his hide-out for a year; he must have got dreadfully tired
of his sulphuretted drinking-water. We made our coffee
with it and I cannot say I would fancy it every day. But
it does seem a waste that aU this hot water should be
bubbling away here for nothing. When you think of all the
trouble housewives are having this very minute with
boilers and how people who still use ranges forget to put
in or pull out the dampers and how every other lodging-
house has a geyser over the bath which won’t work pro-
perly. Why didn’t Nature put Hveravellir in Bayswater?
Greenhalge, Maisie, Anne, and I (being the elect) are sleep-
ing on the upper platform close to the iron roof. The roof
drips water and spiders. This evening was not a great
success. When we opened the food panniers it was found
that the cheese was thickly coated with coffee. Greenhalge,
noble as ever, set to work to decarbonise it (her own
phrase) but we were all discouraged as the cheese is the
one food which anyone would think of eating in England.
After supper we played rummy on the lolVer platform by
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tke Kght o£ candles in shoes (my little patent, you remem-
ber) and a very odd scene we made like a Victorian en-
graving of a meeting of Old Covenanters. One good mot
on this occasion: Greenhalge suddenly said ‘^O here’s a
knave with such a sympathetic expression’ to which Ruth
replied quietly ^Then it must be a queen’. Maisie was
frightfuUy pleased. The Icelandic cards aU have different
faces, you see, and there’s no doubt that our present
’ company see little need for a world of two sexes. They will
grow out of that of course. I’ve seen ’em do it before.
Incidentally I haven’t noticed much galanterie on the part
of the guides. Maisie says it’s because the North is ascetic
but I think it’s just because we’re dowdy. The Icelandic
girl is never without her lipstick. Your poor Hetty has
lost hers in her sleeping-bag. I said to Maisie ^Haven’t you
got anything of the sort?’ and she said ^The only thing that
ever goes on my face is good honest Lifebuoy Soap’. She
has a tablet with her which she takes down to the gletcher.
Personally I’m giving up ablutions; when I get home I
shall go to Elizabeth Arden’s. Good-night, darling. Perhaps
you’re sleeping in a hut too. Mountaineers always do, don’t
they? Maisie has been telling me terrible things about
mountaineers and I think you had better be careful with
yoxir new friend. What a life you have, don’t you! But with
aU that choice you ought to hit it off some day. Good-night.
August 21st
I had to get up in the night — ^I think it was the sulphu-
retted coffee. Or rather I should say get down because
there I was up on the platform absolutely wedged in with
corpses. So instead of going down by the ladder I did a
little exhibition of gym and swung myself down by my
hands, nearly falling over a guide. It was impleasant out-
side, a thick Scotch mist and the ground very cold under
my stockinged feet. Of course I oughtn’t really to be
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wearing my six-and-elevens from Marshall and Snelgrove
out here but I never thought of bringing anything wooUen,
One can’t think of everything after all. Maisie says she is
going to write to Robin about me. Robin wouldn’t know
though; it is the sort of thing he does himself. I felt defi-
nitely ill when I got back to bed and kept wondering
whether I had caught a disease from my sleeping-bag or
whether it was just that nasty horse yesterday. But I will
spare you the details of my symptoms. I woke up at 6.0
\vith a dream-couplet running in my head. Until I was pro-
perly awake I thought it was terribly good. It went like
this:
^We write no ethics down the cabin walls.
There are ethics at home at all.’
I wonder would the Surrealists pay me anything for that.
To-day we did our longest trek — ^70 kilometres. You work
that out in miles and take off your hat to us! And what was
more, we walked half of it on our own feet. Because to-day
we were doing imdiscovered coimtry. Doesn’t that excite
you, darling? We had to get across, you see, from Hvera-
v^Dir to Axnarvatn. Well, people don’t do that direct. They
go up much farther north and then down again. But we
hadn’t time for that because the girls have to catch a boat.
The guides themselves were quite excited and amused
themselves by building cairns — a game to which the
coimtry is admirably adapted. In the ceiitre of Iceland
there are only three khxds of scenery — Stones, More Stones,
and All Stones. The third type predominated to-day. The
stones are the wrong size, the wrong shape, the wrong
colour, and too many of them. They are not big enough to
impress and not small enough to negotiate. Absolutely un-
picturesque and absolutely non-utilitarian. We stumbled
over their points in gumboots, dragging the wretched
horses behind us. And at the same time we were climbing.
Maisie was disgusted. She said it was like afteraparty which
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no one had tidied up. It’s certainly hard to think how a
country gets in a mess like this. A geologist would know, I
suppose. The glacier was now to our south and looking dis-
tinctly jaded. There were peaky mountains on our right,
dull and sullen in the mist. About 1.0 we found a fallen-ia
cave, a thing like a subway and no more beautiful, and
stopped there to eat chocolate. Ruth too seems to be suffer-
ing from the sulphur. Then we went on again over the stones.
Next time we ford a river I shall be very surprised if om boots
do not turn out to be punctured. I tried to remember my
T. S. Eliot and said something to Maisie about stony rubbish
and dry bones but Maisie said anyone would be an optimist
who expected to find anything as human as a dry bone in
these parts. Then we came to the dry bed of a river which
seemed even more desolate still and was also a litter of
stones. And then at long last we came to a miracle — a
small patch of grass with sheep on it. Not that I would be
those sheep aU the same. Still they seem to thrive on it.
In fact, the sheep in Iceland all look the size of horses. Once
we had seen the sheep things went better. The sun even
came out. We came to a clear stream where the hors.es
could drink and not long after that we reached our destina-
tion — a very beautiful lake lined with long gleams of silver
in the low sun. Here we fotmd our third hut — ^far more
primitive than even the last one and a great deal smaller.
Maisie and I commandeered it on the ground that we are
the least well ecjuipped in the way of tents. I think we
made a mistake. Not that it hasn’t an admirable situation.
It stands over a little river which falls in a cascade to the
lake; it is called the Skammd or Short River and is rap-
turously cold to drink. Away to the south-east stands the
EiriksjokuU, a dark, square, upstanding mass of mountain
with white flaps of ice coming down over its walls. But it
is built of turf and stone — ^the hut, I mean — and the turf
is falling out of the walls and roof and the sleeping-plat-
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form was thick with earth and cobwebs and Maisie began
by putting her foot through it. There is also a very peculiar
smell. We prepared for a meal outside the hut and Maisie
on opening the pack which contains her stove found that
it had fallen irrevocably to pieces. The fruit of our long
trek. Well, that was that — ^no coffee or cocoa and we had
to drink the Skamma. So then we tried to think of some-
thing original to do and we played rummy in the hut.
There was so little room when the girls all got on the plat-
form that we had to stick the candles on the crossbeam.
Every now and again a sod of turf would fall on us from
the roof and tempers were none too good. The girls said
they were joUy glad they were sleeping in their tents.
Various people have written their names on the beams of
this hut, including one F. J. Smith, who adds sympatheti-
cally Wery cold’. The hut boasts one teacup with a design
of pink roses and tied up with string. Maisie and I have
been discussing what can cause the smell under our bed.
Maisie was very pleased this evening because Stella broke
her bracelet. She broke it in a typical manner by snapping
it Jbackwards and forwards. Maisie says all those orna-
ments are relics of barbarism and that both men and
women nowadays should aim at dressmg in imiforms. No
friUs and no bright colours. That is civilisation, Maisie
says. A sweet-tooth is a bad sign too, she thinks, like the
Icelanders sugaring their potatoes- I tend to agree here.
I think I had now better put out the remaining candle as
it is leaning sideways and plastering Maisie’s shoe with
wax. Her shoes are having a hard time as they are also used
for ashtrays. This black hole of a hut has rather a roue
appearance at the moment as Maisie has hung her bras-
siere from the crossbeam. It is deplorably cold and the
wooden platform is hard under my sleeping-bag. I thought
very hard and managed to remember a Latin quotation —
probitas laudatus et alget — which means roughly that it is
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a fine thing to be a Girl Guide but that you can’t keep
warm in kudos. How only too true, darling. ‘Never again’
Maisie and I have been saying to each other. Well, here
goes the light.
August 22nd
I woke at 6.0 feeling half frozen. Maisie in spite of
her pneumatic mattress, sleeping-bag and extra blankets
maintained that she was even colder. Rain came on at
breakfast time blown by a cold wind oflf the LangjokuU.
After breakfast walking fifty yards up the Skamma I came
upon a rock adorned with a hammer and sickle in red
paint. It was like Robinson Crusoe seeing a human foot-
print. The rain became definitely vehement so we prepared
ourselves for a bad day. I put on puttees over my beach-
trousers and borrowed some gloves from Anne. Then we
clambered into our already sopping saddles and set off
leaning into the wind and trying to cover our knees with
our oilskins. What a morning! As we moved south and
drew level with the EiriksjdkuU the wind increased,
whipping straight across the glacier and nearly blowingns
off our horses. The rain became hail. When we dismounted
to give our horses a rest we realised how wet we were about
the knees. Greenhalge remarked that -vfhen roughing it in
this way it is always a good thing to think of the discom-
forts of the people climbing Everest. Maisie says she
would rather think about the people dining at the Ritz.
Maisie was looking odder than ever to-day as she had for
the first time put on her yellow oilskin leggings. She began
by wearing them inside her gumboots but after half-an-
hour or so realised that the water was collecting round her
feet so she put them on over her boots which no doubt
served a purpose but no one could call it very chic. She
looked as if she had webbed feet. Well, on and on we rode
throt^ the stinging rain; it was so nasty it was really
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rather enjoyable. And we all felt rather heroic, I think. I
heard two of the girls telling each other what a lot of grit
La Paloma has. La Paloma, you remember, is Miss Green-
halge. We came to a very nice round pool lying flat in
the rocks which the wind was whipping up into ostrich
feathers. What really kept us going however was the
knowledge that to-night we should spend for the first time
in a human habitation, an outpost farm at a place called
Kalmanstunga. You have no idea what a <iiff*erence it
makes knowing that you won’t have to bother with tents.
As for huts the less said about last night’s hut the better.
In the afternoon the rain gradually subsided and stopping
our horses on the brink of a yawning cave we cHmbed
down into the shelter of its mouth and there ate our four
portions of chocolate. It then transpired that the chief
guide was for some unknown reason very anxious to do us
the honours of the cave and lead us undergroimd to an-
other opening goodness knows how far distant. Wishing
to be poHte we agreed to this and our first impetus had
carried us well into the darkness before we realised that to
play this game with any success whatsoever you need a
candle per head. Greenhalge, reliable as ever, produced a
candle but one candle is inadequate for eight persons, and
I thought we were due for a serious accident for in all
directions you could hear people and rocks falling over
each other. It was not a very handsome cave, what one
could see of it, and the floor was entirely covered with a
jumble of Isirge rocks so that you coxdd only make a yard
of progress by cKmbing say six foot up and four foot down
again. And one should not do these things in long oilskin
coats. Our one candle did not promise to last and the girls,
Anne in particular, became a trifle agitated so we ex-
plained to the guide, rather to his chagrin, that we would
now go back again. The one attractive thing about this
cave was the ice which grew in it, sprouting upwards in
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shapes like empty champagne bottles, each with a nice
round hole in the top of the neck. I broke one of these
bottle-necks off and sucked it on our return journey. It
was deliciously refreshing. Poor Maisie had a rough pas-
sage, she kept falling over the flaps of her leggings and I
was afraid she would break something. We all, however,
emerged to the light without injury. The rain had now
stopped and our clothes were again comparatively dry.
After an hour or so we came to an unwonted sight — a gate.
The first gate we had seen since GuUfoss. Admittedly it
was a rather tenuous gate precariously suspended in a
barely existent-fence. All the same it was a gate and a
symbol of civilisation. The going was better now and we
trotted happily for Kalmanstunga. We got there about
6.0, coming to it down a steep hill. Maisie had ridden ahead,
announced our arrival and ordered coffee. The farmhouse
is a large respectable building of corrugated iron standing
in the middle of an emerald green tiin. Tiin (pronounced
toon) is the specially cultivated meadow attached to an
Icelandic farm. Kalmanstunga has many stone outhouses
roofed with nice green sods; this kind of roof always has
a Beatrix Potter look about it. Having got off my horse
and splashed through the little stream separating the
stables from the house I arrived in time to hear Greenhalge
make the following remark — ^that it was a really astonish*^
ing thing in such a position to find a farmhouse of corru-
gated iron where one woidd expect a thatched cottage
covered with wisteria. Personally I didn’t care what it was
covered with provided I got my hot coffee. Yesterday,
remember, we had nothing but cold water. The house was
already full of people, being the only house for miles and
in a strategic position for travellers. We were waited on,
in fact, by a fellow-guest, an Icelandic lady who had spent
most of her life in Denmark, Scotland, and London. She
was a non-stop talker but an eflicient waitress, put two
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tables together for us and laid them with a wonderful meal
of coffee and cakes. Marie Antoinette’s economic sugges-
tion, ‘If they have no bread, give them cake’, would be a
perfectly sound one in Iceland for the Icelanders are the
world’s greatest cake-eaters. In many of the farms they eat
them at every meal starting with breakfast. When we had
put down all we could the talkative lady cleared away and
in the course of an enthusiastic statement of her love for
Britain told us that dinner woxdd be ready in half-an-hour. •
So for half an hour Maisie played the piano — ^it is very
unusual to have a piano and not a harmonium — and then
dinner arrived and our fears of a sweet soup were not
fulfilled. The Icelanders when they want to give you a
special treat put brilliantine in their soup or else flavour
it perniciously with almond. Hot almond is not a good
taste. The only thing to do with these soups is to drown
them in stewed rhubarb which they tend to give you at the
same time. Maisie says that Icelandic cooking makes her
think of a little boy who has got loose with Mother’s
medicine-chest. After dinner we were shown our rooms —
two rooms leading out of each other, very cosy and hospit-
able but with rather a shortage of beds. The four girls are
sharing two small beds in the first room and in the second
room are two beds which have been run together. Green-
halge naturally has one and Maisie and I £ire sharing the
other. AU the beds here are furnished with deckers, if you
spell it like that, and as a decker can’t be tucked in it is
not ideal for covering two well-grown females such as
Maisie and myself. Maisie is elbowing me inconsiderately
so you must forgive my writing. I can quite clearly hear
the girls whispering next door. Presumably they don’t
realise we can hear them. The two nearest to us are ta l k i ng
about La Paloma (La P. herself can’t hear, I think, as she
is the far side of us and seems to be already asleep). One
of the two girls says that La Paloma has a very beautiful
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smfle but the other says that it is not such a spiritual
smile as one Miss Robinson’s. Now they have got on to
me. They do not think my smile is nice; one of them says
it is cynical and the other says I use make-up (this is not
at the moment true as I have lost my lipstick). Now they
have reverted to La Paloma and are wondering if she
meant either of them when she said to-day, ‘Some girls grow
Tnneh (pucker than others.’ One of them says that
Mias Robinson gave her a brooch at the end of last term —
one of those too sweet little brooches with fox-terriers on
them. The other refuses to believe this; they are both
getting piqued. Now the other — I mean the one — has got
out of bed to look for the brooeh in her rucksack. She has
found it and is showing it off in triumph. The other is
distinctly huffy, she will not believe that it came from
Miss Robinson but says that the one bought it herself in
Woolworth’s. The one answers indignantly that you can
see brooches like that in Bond Street. Now the other
starts a hare; she says that she had a Christmas card from
Miss Robinson last Christmas. The one is rather stumped
over this but rallies and says in a sinister tone, ‘Last
Christmas was last Christmas.’ Now there is going to be a
scrap. No, there was no scrap; they merely had a general
post and everyone changed beds. Maisie says there is
nothing new under the sun. Good-night, darling.
August 23rd
To-day began in comfort and ended in misery. We got
up for once at a rational hour and even had a little hot
water to sponge our faces with. While we were dressing
that extraordinary girl Mary had an attack of music. She
gave a (piite remarkably timeless rendering of ‘O God our
help in ages past’. And when someone ironically congratu-
lated her she said, ‘Yes and I’m also very fond of Jerusalem
the Golden.’ Breakfast was at 9.0 and lunch at 10.0, We
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said, ‘Isn’t that a little soon for lunch ?’ but they explained
that it was quite all right because they kept their clocks
two hours ahead of Reykjavik. Anyway lunch was a thun-
dering meal — ^mutton drowned in gravy followed by a
mix-up of fruit and sago. Overnight our clothes had been
considerately dried and we now put on our numerous
extras although the morning looked fine and mUd. Our
caution was justified. The guides kept us waiting while
they went over the horses’ shoes and we stood outside the
farm looking over to the LangjokuU. They say that to
cross the LangjokuU here from Hvitavatn takes 13 — or
is it 16 — ^hours. That is one thing we will not do though
I am sure Greenhalge would have great fun rescuing the
girls from crevasses. Greenhalge once went on a visit to a
mission school in India where she heroically lulled a
scorpion. There was such a nice dog who talked to us
while we were waiting, a sort of little sheepdog, black and
white with a thick but not very long coat, a broad forehead
and a spitzy foreface. Nearly all Icelandic dogs are of this
type except that the colour varies. They are amazingly
friendly creatures; it is considered a bad trait in an Ice-
landic dog if he harks at strangers. They tend to be called
Gosi which is the name of the knave in an Icelandic pack
of Cards. I must bring you home some Icelandic cards; the
kings and queens are figures from the sagas and the aces
axe waterfalls. Badly drawn but a less expensive souvenir
than a sheepskin or a silver fox. Iceland is a barren land
for souvenirs. Of course one can always bring home little
bits of lava for one’s friends — I saw the Manchester school-
teachers doing this at the Great Geysir — ^but I am afraid
I have the wrong sort of friends. Maisie and I had a con-
versation this morning about the foreignness of Iceland.
We decided that not counting the scenery, which is of
course unthinkable, there are only two really foreign
things in the place — (1) the system of nomenclature and
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(2), as already mentioned, the food. The former is just
lunatic; in order to use a telephone directory you have to
know everyone’s Christian names and then you are not
much farther because all their Christian names are the
same. The people themselves are not nearly so foreign as
the Irish or the yokels of Somerset. You can’t imagine any
of them behaving like the people in the sagas, saying
"That was an ill word’ and shooting the other man dead.
Disappointing, still one needn’t travel if one wants to see
odd behaviour. You are wonderfully situated, of course, in
Cambridge. Talking of local colour did I tell you about the
ship’s electrician I met on the Flying Scot? He told me
that Abyssinia was largely inhabited by black Jews with
ginger hair. But to get on with my record. The guides
finished tinkering with the horses and we set oflf g^y in
the brisk and Hvely morning. They all waved us oflF from
the farm. It would be rather nice to spend the winter at
one of these farms — a terrific fug, constant jabber on the
radio, ivy growing in pots and the family reading HaU
Caine. It was sad to think there would be no farm to-night.
But the reality was worse than otir expectations. We
began by fording a turbident river, the water came over
the tops of our boots — at least of our left boots — ^the girls
thought it was a scream. It’s not such a scream though to
have water in yom boots for hours afterwards. The Ice-
landic pony is of course an amphibian. He can even swim
a river with someone in the saddle but it has to be the
right someone. There is a legend of an Icelander who in the
early days of tobacco used to swim his horse two miles out
to sea to meet the tobacco boat. After fording the river
the rain started, a drizzle hut very unpleasant. One could
not decide whether to fasten up the collar of one’s oilskin
or not. And then we went through a so-called hirch forest
^a scrubby little affair about four foot high but it does
seem quite compamonable after the miles and miles and
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miles of no vegetation but moss. A little later we reacted
a very nice piece of grassland where Ruth contrived to be
thrown when her pony put its foot in a hole. From Kal-
manstunga south we had been following a track which is
used by cars — one of those thick red lines which look so
impressive on the map. Nowhere else in the world I sup-
pose would this be called a road but it is used as such for
we met two buses on it. And as a matter of fact whoever
constructed these roads is a pubUc benefactor even though"
constructing consists merely in moving aside the stones,
that is the bigger stones. Our progress to-day was again
stony once we had left the short stretch of grassland. We
got in between LangjokuU on the left and a mountain
with the charming name of Ok on the right and once we
had done that all we could think of was getting somewhere
else. But we didn’t. We went on and on and the landscape
remained the same. It was like walking the wrong way on
a moving staircase. We were close in under the LangjbkuU
but it was covered with mist. Maisie was in a frightful
temper. This valley is called Kaldidalur which means Cold
Dale — apt but inadequate. The Icelanders are rather
proud of it as a show-piece of scenery and no doubt on a
clear day it may be quite beautiful if one drives through it
quickly in a car. But all we could see was a thirty-foot
radius of stones. The stones were too much for my horse
and it took to stumbling. We came across the ancient
wreck of a very primitive touring car — ^more desolate than
the bones of a camel in a film about the Foreign Legion.
The rain never came on veiry properly but it was con-
tinuously damp and we began to think we preferred
yesterday’s weather which at least made us feel heroic.
About supper-time we got down into lower country and
riding on ahead of the guides stopped our horses on a
marshy piece of pasture ground on the edge of a dreary
lake. We hoped this wasn’t our destination but it was. It
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is called Brmmar. We set up our tents on squelchy ground
in the drizzle and owing to the direction of the wind and
the lie of the ground M. and I have to sleep with our heads
out of the door to-night. However, we have erected across
it a barrier of kitbags, gumboots, and canvas panniers.
The guides think we are funny because we all look so
gloomy. The guides deserve high marks to-night for, after
we had eaten a melancholy meal in the rain and were all
' moaning because, owing to the breakdown of Maisie's stove
there was no hot drink to wash it down with, the guides
came along rather shyly and asked (mainly by dumb show)
if we would like the loan of their stove. We didn’t know
they had a stove but sure enough they brought along a
minute rudimentary object like a small canister which we
welcomed with open arms and it actually worked though
I must admit it took some time. While we were waiting
patiently for our coffee Maisie made a sudden scene and
said she would not have highly scented foods in her bed.
This referred to some cheese and smoked mutton which I
had left there. When the coffee arrived we had to drink it
not only, as always, without milk but also without sugar.
The sugar is kept in an old tobacco tin, and when we
opened it to-night every single lump had turned a deep
puce colour. Quite inexplicable and rather sinister. No
one, even the guides, had the nerve to try any of it. Maisie
and I are now lying wedged in our tent hoping for the best.
The Icdandic year has passed its prime and the guides are
taking no more expeditions after this one. I feel I should
mention that we saw some ptarmigan on arriving at
Bnmnar. You won’t know any more about ptarmigan
than I do but it is quite time I gave you a nature note
(there is awfully little nature aroimd here). Maisie and I,
clammy and rheumatic, are listening to the schoolgirls
chattering in their tents next door and are asking each
other whose fault this is. We have told the guides that we
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want to start early to-morrow. To-morrow brings ns to
civilisation and there is no point in staying in this par-
ticular little swamp a minute longer than we need.
August 24th
Well, here we are in ValhaUa — ^that really is what it is
called — ^the hotel at Thingvellir. Thingvellir is where they
used to have the Thing, which was the Icelandic name for
parliament and a very good name too, don’t you think.
It is the historic showplace. Not that there is anything to
see except geology but it is amusing geology — rifts and
such. It would have been nicer if we had had better
weather but the day has been damp and misty and Ruth
quarrelled with Stella because Stella intrigued with Anne
to prevent Mary riding beside Greenhalge. Mary was in
tears (she admires Greenhalge intensely across a great gulf
of incompatibility) and Ruth demanded back &om Stella
an Eversharp pencil which she had given her and which
Stella refused to return. We were up this morning at 6.0
with no appetite whatsoever and intending to leave
Brunnar as quickly as possible. Naturally the ponies chose
just this one morning to get lost, the guides disappeared
over the horizon in search of them and the rest of us waited
in our marsh among our bags and chattels like people in a
country railway station in the West of Ireland where the
train has stopped on the way to talk to the cows. The
tents were packed up, the food panniers strapped down,
ourselves muffled in scarves, and Maisie r unnin g roxmd
taking photos. They will not come out of course but
Maisie does not like to waste her time. At long last the
horses returned quite impenitent and off we started. I had
an excellent horse to-day, a large black one with a white
star on its forehead, and we got our best gallop yet across
a long expanse of grey sand by a lake called Sandurvatn.
In our heart of hearts I think we were aU playing sheikhs..
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It is very nice when the sand flies up in your face and you
plop up and down in the saddle to a perfectly regular
rhythm — chichihu, chichihu, chichibu. It is not really
galloping of course, only cantering. Our stampede across
the sands went to the head of that old malefactor, the
white pack-horse, who broke loose and galloped after us,
throwing off Maisie’s bed en route. Anne, who has a habit
of mock indignation (at least it starts mock and ends
• serious) was very cross indeed with the white pack-horse
and said it should be thoroughly well thrashed; she is soon,
as I said, going to be house prefect. Maisie’s bed was re-
established (we had to gather up various very odd articles
which had fallen out of it on the sands, it is by way of also
being a hold-all) and we went up slowly over the water-
shed, from the top of which we had a fine view of the plain
that reaches to Thingvellir, a fine plain that looks a lot
more livable than anything we have seen lately. We
pastured our horses ^it the foot of the descent and then
went aU out for otir Mecca, reaching it about 2.0 in the
afternoon — a good deal earlier than we had expected. We
went straight to the hotel and ordered coffee. The hotel
is about the only building here but there is also a minute
chmch. While we were waiting for the guides and pack-
horses who had been left a very long way behind, we nearly
had a serious imshap thanks to the incredible stupidity
of Mary and Stella. Stella, as you remember, is supposed
to know about horses. Well those two infant geniuses
finding their horses had no hobbles tied them to the two
ends of a ladder belonging to the hotel. Inevitable result;
the horses ran amok and the ladder suffered from schism.
Maisie and I from the breakfast room looked out over the
landscape and suddenly saw these two horses catapult
across it with the ladders (or half a ladder each I should
say) clattering behind them. By some miracle they escaped
injury and we said nothing about the ladder at the hotel.
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After our coffee Maisie and I, with the unanimous support
of the girls (sloppy little things!) began to work upon
Greenhalge to induce her not to camp out to-night; she
had her eye upon a peculiarly unprepossessing site between
two low-grade ditches. After all what is a tent? A tent is a
make-believe house; when there is a real house about why
go on making a belief one? Greenhalge lowered her stan-
dards to a compromise. We had suggested, out of the
cunning of our hearts, that we should all sleep in sleeping-
bags in the dance-hall. This sounded enough like a bar-
racks to appeal to Greenhalge’s passion for hardship so
she cried off the tents and said we would all rough it in the
dance-hall. But when we asked the hotel people if we
could rough it in the dance-hall they said unfortunately
no because it was wanted for 250 Frenchmen who are
coming to breakfast to-morrow. So (the virtuous are re-
warded in the end) they have supplied us instead with
little cabins on the ground floor, six foot square, two beds
in each, walls of matchboarding, one krona a night. That
is what I call good value but poor Greenhalge felt she had
been tricked. In the afternoon we walked up the gorge.
Everyone has to walk up the gorge here. Just like when
you go to Tintem Abbey you have to see the moon
through an arch. The gorge is an odd phenomenon and
would be nice for a picnic. The spirit of the sagas de-
scended upon me and I walked through the river in my
gumboots. This was just above the fall and I liked to think
it was dangerous; whether it was dangerous or not I got a
lot of water in my boots and had to hurry home. Maisie,
Ruth, and Mary remained behind and in a spirit of emula-
tion climbed down the waterfall itself; or so they told me
afterwards. I doubted it because they seemed to be quite
dry. When we were all together again in the hotel it was
suggested we should go a nice row on the lake in the mist.
No one showed great enthusiasm for this and we ordered
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Hetty to Nancy
some coffee instead. M. and I went to our cabin to change
and I quite innocently did a perfect turn h la Brothers
Bronett— you remember, the clowns at Olympia— by
pulling off my boots and thereby flooding out our bed-
room. Not only our bedroom because it flowed along the
passage and we could hear it lapping on unknown doors
in the distance. No one would believe so much water could
come out of one pah of gumboots. Maisie was rather cross
about it. We took our clothes to the kitchen to be dried
and sat down to our coffee and cigarettes; we have been
hard up for cigarettes since Kalmanstunga. Here as every-
where else you can only buy Commanders. There are
several oil paintings in this hotel, notably a rather limatic
picture of the Thingvellir gorge by that cnrious painter
Kjarval. Kjarval’s gorge was not at aU as we saw it but
then most of the Icelandic painters seem to see with the
eyes of chameleons. Cascades of paint, a dr unk pink sky,
a whole lot of things looking like sunflowers and wheels
flying about over the rocks, a total effect of perfectly
tropical luxuriance. I am not sure however that I do not
prefer this mania for colour to the kind of fake C4zanne
landscape which a few of their painters go in for. There
is also here a very sombre lava-scape by one Johann
Briem which only demonstrates that the Icelandic cubist
has no call to distort as Nature has done that for him. I
have also in this hotel been observing the Icelandic girls.
Fine strapping wenches on the whole, with tilted noses,
figures rather tight and slightly assertive bosoms. Their
expression of face tends to be self-possessed. I shotild think
there is no fluff in their relationships. We had hardly
finished coffee when we had our evening meal in Green-
halge’s cabin. We chose her room because she has it to
hersdf but all the same I am sorry for her. It is not so nice
to sleep in a room which is stuccoed with food. I haven’t
noticed if it applies to myself but I must say the others
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Hetty to Nancy
have become rather untidy eaters on this expedition.
Greenhalge was wonderfully good-humoured about it;
perhaps she felt it made up for not sleeping in a tent. After
dinner we played a little desultory rummy and when the
girls had gone to bed Greenhalge and Maisie had a long
and very serious conversation about adolescence, educa-
tion, and psychology. It all began when Greenhalge said
that one of the ‘difficult’ girls at her school had been sent
to a psycho-analyst. This set Maisie oS on her hobby-horse.
No one, according to M., ought to go to an analyst except
of their own free will, i.e. if they are so unhappy that
analysis is the only hope for them. Now your ‘ffifficult’
girls, as Maisie quite rightly maintains, are probably no
more unhappy than anyone else; it is only that they get
in the way of the headmistress. The headmistress wants
everything to be right and tight in her own little hive and
doesn’t care a hang for the girls’ lives as individuals. So
off they go to the analyst who removes their difficulties
and from then on they are as clean and harmless about the
house as a neuter cat. (Maisie’s comparison, not mine.) All
yery well for the house but what about the cat, says
Maisie. Maisie says it is a bad thing in Freud that he always
suggests that neurosis is something to he got rid of. On the
contrary, says M., all the progress in this world is due to
neurosis. If Sylvia Pankhturst had been analysed in her
’teens, we shouldn’t have women’s suffrage. Let us have
as much neurosis as we can stand. This reminded me of an
argument I had with Robin, which I now repeated to
Maisie. M. says I must tell Robin I refuse to have children
if he is going to Truby King them. I must only have them
on condition that they are to be exposed to germs, allowed
to retain their neuroses and never on any account given
purges. From purges we got on to religion and we all
agreed that poor old Freud is sadly off the rails in The
Future of an Ittusiou. All that stuff about the pmre and
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Hetty to Nancy
scintillating mind of the child being blunted and crippled
by its early religious instruction. Not that I am any advo-
cate for religious instruction, which is one of the reasons
I like Iceland. Iceland is one of the few places where you
don’t feel it in the air when it’s Sunday. I dare say though
that the introduction of Christianity did indirectly pro-
mote the amelioration of social conditions (just to show
you I can write like a don too) for the life of the sagas was
not qidte what we call civilised. Talking of civilisation it
is comfortable in this bed and I very much hope to-morrow
night Greenhalge doesn’t force us to camp out at Laugar-
vatn. She was saying sadly to-night that the expedition
had really been very easy. No really gruelling tests of
the girls’ endurance. Judging by the girls’ behaviour at
Kaldidalur I should say this was just as well. How do you
find your endurance in the Dolomites ? Good-night, darling.
To-morrow is our last trek.
August 25th
We had our last ride this morning and our first bath
this evening. The baths at Laugarvatn are heated from
the hot springs; with great good sense they do not use the
actual water of the springs (sulphur again!) but with much
ingenuity run some ordinary water through the springs
in pipes. This morning we saw the 250 Frenchmen — ^the
ones who were coming to breakfast. Many of them were
Germans but even so there were a lot more French than
one expects to see anywhere out of France. They were
mostly naiddle-aged but included a few miserable girls in
their ’teens whom Greenhalge was able to compare un-
favourably with our ones. They had aU motored out the
50 kilometres or so from Reykjavik and had the time of
their lives taking cine-photos of four or five unhappy little
native children togged up in pseudo-national dress and
standingin awkward dumbcrambo attitudes against ablank
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Hetty to Nancy
wall. The invasion, needless to say, also included a few
middle-aged Englishwomen, the sort with ankles lapping
down over their shoes and a puglike expression of factitious
enthusiasm combined with the determination to be in at
the death, whoever or whatever is dying. Maisie had a
field-day with her Zeiss. And so to Laugarvatn. I had the
little brown pony which I had the first day, and, strange
to say, I now found it extremely comfortable. Greenhalge
fell off twice to-day but the really bad feature of the day
was that the guides produced another cave (they ought
to be psycho-analysed). We entered it by a small burrow
and it took us three-quarters of an hour to reach the other
end of it. It was just as clammy, rugged, incoherent,
dangerous, and dark as the one near Kalmanstunga and
once again we had only one candle. There is nothing to be
said for this type of cave. We saw more caves later how-
ever; we went out of our way to see them in fact, branching
up a grassy slope to the left. These ones were rounded
openings in a very soft cinder-coloured stone which I
maintaia to be a kind of volcanic sandstone. Maisie says
that a volcanic sandstone is a contradiction in terms; it is
a sad reflection on female education that none of us knows
any geology. One thing we do know however is that you
can’t find fossils in Iceland. A pity; a fossil or two would
make the place more homey. Well, till a few years ago
these sandstone or whatever-they-are caves were lived in
by a couple with a cow. The rock is very easy to cut and
you could see where they had cut slots for the door-bars,
also where the cow had spent long nights munching away
the wall. The rock outside, which is of a very odd formation
— quite Barbara Hepworth — ^is covered with carved
names, names of people and ships and the registration
numbers of cars. Someone has also carefully cut out the
word SILLY and cut a square round it. The road from
here to Laugarvatn was mainly downhill and Maisie and
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Hetty to Nancy
Anne rode ahead in a spirit of competition; Maisie likes to
show she is not as old as she was. Various signs of civilisa-
tion began to appear such as stray agricultural imple-
ments. My little pony began to shy; I suppose it thought
they were monsters. I was not at all surprised when we
reached Laugarvatn to hear that Maisie had been thrown
by her horse a htmdred yards from home. While galloping
up the straight it suddenly turned at right angles to itself,
leaving Maisie in the air, from which in due time she
descended but, being Maisie, did not break anything or
appear appreciably altered except for a little mud on the
face. The hotel at Laugarvatn is a school in the winter and
an hotel in the summer. It is a very pleasant place but we
are not sleeping in it. The others have put up their own
tents and Maisie and I have hired one of the large tents
which the hotel lets out in the summer to surplus visitors.
This is much more what a tent ought to be. There is a
camp-bed on either side of it plus mattresses plus bolsters,
and there is room to move about in the middle. There are
of course spiders. It is sad to think that they never have
anything but grass and hay to eat. Oh sorry — I must have
left out a sentence. I meant to say that we had said good-
bye to our horses. Not the spiders, you see. Not but what
the spiders must have rather a thin time because there are
very few flies in this country. Perhaps they are Bernard
Shaw spiders. We stood ourselves a dinner in the hotel
instead of making a last inroad on the smoked mutton (by
now rather sordid) and our dried fish who is so tattered he
looks like a scarecrow; he was a fine animal once. Diuner
began with asparagus soup — aren’t we getting civilised —
but I was very sorry we had no skyr. Skyr is very good; it
is a near relation of cream cheese and a ^stant relation of
yaghourt. There were about fifty old women also having
dinner — a kind of mother’s tmion for they were weajring
their national costume which with its gold medallions in
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Hetty to Nancy
front and long loops of hair behind makes a lady, from my
own point of view, look rather too much like a horse. We
treated ourselves to some citron and Maisie had an attack
of General Knowledge. She told us — ^what we all knew
already — ^that the population of Iceland is 110,000 of which
30,000 live in Reykjavik. Mary wanted to know how they
knew this. I am getting just a teeny bit tired of communing
with the budding mind of youth. The conversation of the
young has no doubt a certain artless charm which pleases
for the length of a tea-party but when prolonged all the
way round the Langjokull it suffers from the two minor
flaws of being (o) invariably platitudinous and (&) in-
finitely repetitive. They are all getting terribly excited
about their train-connections at Hull; to-morrow, you see,
they are s ailin g for home. I think they are banking too
much on their boat running to schedule. No doubt as far
as place goes it will be reasonably accurate and land them
in Hull and not in Fishguard but I should allow a good
36 hours’ margin for time. They are only little boats after
all. I can hear the young now; they are lying in their tents
next door, writing up their diaries. Two of them are ta lkin g
about Miss Robinson. Anne is going to stay behind to-
morrow. She and Maisie and I have an mvitation to stay
in the lunatic asylum. I shall send this letter with Miss
Greenhalge on the Godafoss. Good-night, Hebchen.
August 21tk
‘And so the game is ended that should not have begun.’
We are now on the Godafoss seeing off our party. You will
notice that the boat is leaving a day late; it probably
stopped roimd the coast to pick up some fish-heads (Ice-
landic boats have the courage of their caprices). I am
writing this with a blunt pencil leaning against the taff-
rail (?). Yesterday morning we bussed back from Laugar-
vatn to Reykjavik and heard the sad news about the boat.
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Hetty to Nancy
Greenhalge and the girls spent the night in the students’
hostel, Maisie and Anne and I accepted our invitation to
the asylum, where Maisie fell through her bed; it was a
camp-bed and no doubt took against Maisie for being a
pacifist. The Lunatic Asylum is charmingly situated at
Kleppur and is quite fittingly the place where Marshal
Balbo landed on his flight across the Atlantic. The Reyk-
javik-Kleppur bus is designed like a cathedral; there are a
few seats scattered here and there down the side-aisles and
a vast empty space down the middle for people to stand
in. The road to Kleppur suffers from ribbon development
and nothing, my dear, can look worse than a corrugated
iron suburb if it is not kept tidy. The lunatics here are not
much in evidence though they can be heard faintly cooing
in the distance. They have a very fine bathroom. Our
host, the doctor in charge, is a charming old man and so
are aU his family. He has whitish-grey hair, gold-rimmed
spectacles, fiery blue eyes, a bad leg, and a black velvet
smoking-jacket. M. thinks he looks rather like W. B.
Yeats. That perhaps is because he also is said to be clair-
voyant. Spirituahsm, you know, has a great vogue in Ice-
land though they only have their stances in the winter —
like the hunting season in England. There is a famous
mystic called Dr. Helgi Pjeturrs who has written a book
about life on the other planets. Icelanders, he says, are the
most spiritual people in the world, but, spiritual or not,
we all go to the planets when we die and there we all have
a very good time. Dr. Sveinsson however (our asylum
doctor) did not talk to us much about spiritualism but
indulged his other passion, which is Latin. He has a habit
of breaking into Latin in conversation which is a little
embarrassing for Maisie and me whose classics are dis-
tinctly what you might call rusty. As for that poor girl
Anne, she merely goes red in the face and says, ‘I’m awfully
sorry, I’m afraid I’m jolly bad at it.’ It is very impressive
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Hetty to Nancy
however the way Dr. S. will suddenly turn to you over his
coffee and remark with terrific gusto, ‘Juppiter iratus
buccas inflat’ or ‘Multae sxmt viae iugeni humani.’ His
pronunciation, I may remark, is Icelandic. He showed us
his English-Latin grammar, a mid-nineteenth century
book by one Roby, which he says is a poem to him. When
Dr. S. was a young man he used to act as a guide and take
visitors round the country on ponies. He had some very
good stories about an old English eccentric he was guide.
to every summer — a hot-tempered gentleman who used to
hit people with hunting-whips but he was so short-sighted
he always hit the wrong ones. Mrs. S. was very charming
and hospitable and we had bilberries and cream and
coffee before going to bed. Then came Maisie’s episode with
the bed. This morning we came in to Reykjavik and spent
the whole morning drinking coffee in the Tea-Rooms,
which is their actual name, and eating cream-cakes. We
hear that last night two men in Reykjavik got drunk, one
betted the other he would swim 100 metres in the harbour,
jumped in, swam 50 and was drowned. ... I must finish
this off as the boat has begun to groan. (I don’t blame it.)
The girls are being seen off by a schoolmate who dropped
on them out of the blue in Reykjavik and apparently is
staying with friends here — a boring Kttle girl who poses
as rather fast and has begun using lipstick, needless to say
very badly. Well, darling, goodbye — I don’t suppose you
will ever read all this stuff — ^give my love to Cicely. I hope
to see you anon in Cambridge or Gordon Square, all my
love till then,
Hetty
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Chapter XIII
Letter to Lord Byron
PART IV
A. ship again; this time the Dettifoss.
Grierson can buy it; all the sea I mean,
AH this Atlantic that we’ve now to cross
Heading for England’s pleasant pastures green.
Pro tern I’ve done with the Icelandic scene;
I watch the hills receding in the distance,
I hear the thudding of an engine’s pistons.
I hope I’m better, wiser for the trip:
I’ve had the benefit of northern breezes.
The open road and good companionship,
I’ve seen some very pretty little pieces;
And though the luck was almost all MacNeice’s,
I’ve spent some jolly evenings playing rummy —
No one can talk at Bridge, unless it’s D umm y.
I’ve learnt to ride, at least to ride a pony.
Taken a lot of healthy exercise,
On barren mountains and in valleys stony.
I’ve tasted a hot spring (a taste was wise),
And foods a man remembers till he dies.
AH things considered, I consider Iceland,
Apart from Reylgavik, a very nice land.
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Letter to Lord Byron
The part can stand as symbol for the whole:
So ruminating in these last few weeks,
I see the map of all my youth unroll.
The mental mountains and the psychic creeks.
The towns of which the master never speaks,
The various parishes and what they voted for,
The colonies, their size, and what they’re noted for.
A child may ask when our strange epoch passes.
During a history lesson, ‘Please, sir, what’s
An intellectual of the middle classes?
Is he a maker of ceramic pots
Or does he choose his king by drawing lots?’
What follows now may set him on the rail,
A plain, perhaps a cautionary, tale.
My passport says I’m five feet and eleven,
With hazel eyes and fair (it’s tow-like) hair,
That I was born in York in 1907,
With no distinctive markings anywhere.
, Which isn’t quite correct. Conspicuous there
On my right cheek appears a large brown mole,
I think I don’t disUke it on the whole.
My name occurs in several of the sagas,
Is common over Iceland still. Down under
Where Das Volk order sausages and lagers
I ought to be the prize, the livmg wonder,
The really pure from any Rassenschander,
In fact I am the great big white barbarian.
The Nordic type, the too too truly Aryan.
In games which mark for beauty out of twenty,
I’m doing well if my friends give me eight
(When played historically you still score plenty);
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Letter to Lord Byron
My head looks like an egg upon a plate;
My nose is not too bad, but isn’t straight;
I have no proper eyebrows, and my eyes
Are far too close together to look nice.
Beauty, we’re told, is but a painted show.
But still the public really likes that best;
Beauty of soul should be enough, I know.
The golden ingot in the plain deal chest.
But mine’s a rattle in a flannel vest;
I can’t think what my It had on It’s mind,
To give me flat feet and a big behind.
Apart from lyrics and poetic dramma,
Which Ervine seems more angered by than sad at.
While Sparrow fails to understand their grammar,
I have some harmless hobbies; I’m not bad at
Reading the slower movements, and may add that
Out of my hours of strumming most of them
Pass playing hymn tunes out of A. and M.
Read character from taste. Who seem to me
The great? I know that one as well as you.
‘Why, Darmty, Gouty, Shopkeeper, the three
Supreme Old Masters.’ You must ask me who
Have written just as I’d have Uked to do.
I stop to listen and the names I hear
Are those of Firbank, Potter, Carroll, Lear.
Then phantasies? My anima, poor thing.
Must take the dreams my Alter Ego sends her,
And he’s a marvellous diver, not a king.
But when I’m sickening for influenza,
I play concertos with my own cadenza;
And as the fever rises find it properer
To sing the love duet from a grand opera.
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Letter to Lord Byron
My vices? I’ve no wish to go to prison,
I am no Grouper, I will never share
With any prig who thinks he’d like to listen.
At answering letters I am well aware
I’m very slack; I ought to take more care
Over my clothes; my promise always fails
To smoke much less, and not to bite my nails.
I hate pompositas and all authority;
Its air of injured rightness also sends
Me shuddering from the cultured smug minority.
'^Perpetual revolution’, left-wing friends
TeU me, ‘in counter-revolution ends.
Your fate will be to linger on outcast
A selfish pink old Liberal to the last.’
‘No, I am that I am, and those that level
At my abuses reckon up their own.
I may be straight though they, themselves, are bevel.’
So Shakespeare s aid, but Shakespeare must have known.
I daren’t say that except when I’m alone.
Must hear in silence till I turn my toes up,
‘It’s such a pity Wystan never grows up.’
So I sit down this fine September morning
To tell my story, I’ve another reason.
I’ve lately had a confidential warning
That Isherwood is publishing next season
A hook about us all. I call that treason.
I must be quick if I’m to get my oar in
Before his revelations bring the law in.
My father’s forbears were all Midland yeomen
Till royalties from coal mines did them good;
I think they must have been phlegmatic slowmen.
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Letter to Lord Byron
My mother’s ancestors had Norman blood.
From Somerset I’ve always understood;
My grandfathers on either side agree
In being clergymen and C. of E.
Father and Mother each was one of seven,
Though one died young and one was not all there;
Their fathers both went suddenly to Heaven
While they were still quite small and left them here
To work on earth with little cash to spare;
A nurse, a rising medico, at Bart’s
Both felt the pangs of Cupid’s naughty darts.
My home then was professional and *high’.
No gentler father ever lived, I’ll lay
All Lombard Street against a shepherd’s pie.
We inntate our loves: well, neighbours say
I grow more like my mother every day.
I don’t like business men. I know a Prot
Will never really kneel, but only squat.
In pleasures of the mind they both delighted;
The library in the study was enough
To make a better boy than me short-sighted;
Our old cook Ada surely knew her stuff;
My elder brothers did not treat me rough;
We lived at Solihull, a village then;
Those at the gasworks were my favourite men.
My earliest recollection to stay put
Is of a white stone doorstep and a spot
Of pus where father lanced the terrier’s foot;
Next, stuffing shag into the coffee pot
Which nearly killed my mother, but did not;
Both psycho-analyst and Christian minister,
Will think these incidents extremely sinister.
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Letter to Lord Byron
With northern myths my little brain was laden.
With deeds of Thor and Loki and such scenes;
My favourite tale was Andersen’s Ice Maiden;
But better far than any kings or queens
I liked to see and know about machines:
And from my sixth until my sixteenth year
I thought myself a mining engineer.
The mine I always pictured was for lead,
Though copper mines might, faute de mieux, be soxmd.
To-day I like a weight upon my bed;
I always travel by the Underground;
For concentration I have always found
A small room best, the curtains drawn, the light on;
Then I can work from nine till tea-time, right on.
I must admit that I was most precocious
(Precocious children rarely grow up good).
My aunts and uncles thought me qtdte atrocious
For using words more adult than I should;
, My first remark at school did all it could
To shake a matron’s monumental poise;
T like to see the various types of boys.’
The Great War had begrm: but masters’ scrutiny
And fists of big boys were the war to us;
It was as harmless as the Indian Mutmy,
A beating from the Head was dangerous.
But once when half the form put down Bellus.
We were accused of that most deadly sin.
Wanting the Kaiser and the Hims to win.
The way in which we really were affected
Was having such a varied lot to teach us.
The best were fightings as the King expected,
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Letter to Lord Byron
The remnant either elderly grey creatures,
Or characters with most pecrdiar features.
Many were raggahle, a few were waxy.
One had to leave abruptly in a taxi.
Surnames I must not write — O Reginald,
You at least taught us that which fadeth not.
Our earliest visions of the great wide world;
The beer and biscuits that your favourites got.
Your tales revealing you a first>class shot.
Your riding breeks, your drama called The Waves,
A few of us will carry to our graves.
‘Half a Irmatic, hedf a knave’. No doubt
A holy terror to the staff at tea;
A good headmaster must have soon found out
Your moral character was all at sea;
I question if you’d got a pass degree:
But little children bless your kind that knocks
Away the edifying stumbling blocks.
How can I thank you? For it only shows
(Let me ride just this once my hobby-horse),
There’re things a good headmaster never knows.
There must be sober schoolmasters, of course.
But what a prep school really puts across
Is knowledge of the world we’ll soon be lost in:
To-day it’s more Uke Dickens than Jane Austen.
I hate the modem trick, to teU the truth.
Of straightening out the kinks in the young mind.
Our passion for the tender plant of youth.
Our hatred for all weeds of any kind.
Slogans are bad: the best that I can find
Is this: ‘Let each child have that’s in our care
As much neiurosis as the child can bear.’
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In tins respect, at least, my bad old Adam is
Pigheadedly against tbe general trend;
And has no use for all these new academies
Where readers of the better weeklies send
The child they probably did not intend.
To paint a lampshade, marry, or keep pigeons.
Or make a study of the world religions.
Goddess of bossy underlings. Normality!
What murders are committed in thy name!
Totalitarian is thy state Reality,
Reeking of antiseptics and the shame
Of faces that all look and feel the same.
Thy Muse is one unknown to classic histories.
The topping figure of the hockey mistress.
From thy dread Empire not a soul’s exempted:
More than the nursemaids pushing prams in parks,
By thee the intellectuals are tempted,
O, to commit the treason of the clerks.
Bewitched by thee to literary sharks.
But I must leave thee to thy oflGlce stool,
I must get on now to my public school.
Men had stopped throwing stones at one another.
Butter and Father had come back again;
Gone were the holidays we spent with Mother
In furnished rooms on mountain, moor, and fen;
And gone those summer Sunday evenings, when
Along the seafronts fled a curious noise,
‘Eternal Father’, sung by three young boys.
Nation spoke Peace, or said she did, with nation;
The sexes tried their best to look the same;
Morals lost value during the inflation,
The great Victorians kindly took the blame;
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Letter to Lord Byron
Visions of Dada to the Post-War came.
Sitting in cafes, nostrils stuflFed with bread,
Above the recent and the straight-laced dead.
IVe said my say on public schools elsewhere:
Romantic friendship, prefects, bullying,
I shall not deal with, c’est une autre afifaire.
Those who expect them, will get no such thing.
It is the strictly relevant I sing.
Why should they grumble? They’ve the Greek Anthology,
And aU the spicier bits of Anthropology.
We all grow up the same way, more or less;
Life is not known to give away her presents;
She only swops. The unself-consciousness
That children share with animals and peasants
Sinks in the ^stiirm und drang’ of Adolescence.
Like other boys I lost my taste for sweets.
Discovered simsets, passion, God, and Keats.
I shall recall a single incident
No more. I spoke of mining engineering
As the career on which my mind was bent.
But for some time my fancies had been veering;
Mirages of the future kept appearing;
Crazes had come and gone in short, sharp gales.
For motor-bikes, photography, and whales.
But indecision broke off with a clean-cut end
One afternoon in March at half-past three
When w a l kin g in a ploughed field with a friend;
Klickiag a little stone, he turned to me
And said, ‘Tell me, do you write poetry?’
I never had, and said so, but I knew
That very moment what I wished to do.
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Letter to Lord Byron
Without a bridge passage this leads me straight
Into the theme marked ‘Oxford’ on my score
From pages twenty-five to twenty-eight.
Aesthetic trills I’d never heard before
Rose from the striags, shrill poses from the cor;
The woodwind chattered like a pre-war Russian,
‘Art’ boomed the brass, and ‘Life’ thumped the percussion.
A raw provincial, my good taste was tardy.
And Edward Thomas I as yet preferred;
I was still listening to Thomas Hardy
Putting divinity about a bird;
But Eliot spoke the still unspoken word;
For gasworks and dried tubers I forsook
The clock at Grantchester, the English rook.
All youth’s intolerant certainty was mine as
I faced life in a double-breasted suit;
I bought and praised but did not read Aquinas,
At the Criterion’s verdict I was mute,
Though Arnold’s I was ready to refute;
And through the quads dogmatic words rang clear,
‘Good poetry is classic and austere.’
So much for Art. Of course Life had its passions too;
The student’s flesh hke his imagination
Makes facts fit theories and has fashions too.
We were the tail, a sort of poor relation
To that debauched, eccentric generation
That grew up with their fathers at the War,
And made new glosses on the noun Amor.
Three years passed quickly while the Isis went
Down to the sea for better or for worse;
Then to Berlin, not Carthage, I was sent
With money firom my parents in my purse.
And ceased to see the world in terms of verse.
209
o
Letter to Lord Byron
I met a chap called Layard and he fed
New doctrines into my receptive head.
Part came from Lane, and part from D. H. Lawrence;
Gide, though I didn’t know it then, gave part.
They taught me to express my deep abhorrence
If I caught anyone preferring Art
To Life and Love and being Pure-in-Heart.
I lived with crooks but seldom was molested;
The Pure-in-Heart can never be arrested.
He’s gay; no bludgeonings of chance can spoil it.
The Pure-in-Heart loves all men on a par.
And has no trouble with his private toilet;
The Pure-in-Heart is never ill; catarrh
Would be the yellow streak, the brush of tar;
Determined to be loving and forgiving,
I came back home to try and earn my living.
The only thing you never turned your hand to
Was teaching English in a boarding school.
To-day it’s a profession that seems grand to
Those whose alternative’s an office stool;
For budding authors it’s become the rule.
To many an unknown genius postmen bring
Typed notices from Habbitarse and String.
The Head’s M.A., a bishop is a patron.
The assistant staff is highly qualified;
Health is the care of an experienced matron.
The arts are taught by ladies from outside;
The food is wholesome and the grounds are wide;
The aim is training chmacter and poise.
With special coaching for the backward boys.
I found the pay good and had time to spend it.
Though others may not have the good luck I did:
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Letter to Lord Byron
For you I’d hesitate to recommend it;
Several have told me that they can’t abide it.
StiU, if one tends to get a bit one-sided.
It’s pleasant as it’s easy to secure
The hero worship of the immature.
More, it’s a job, and jobs to-day are rare:
All the ideals in the world won’t feed us
Although they give our crimes a certain air.
So barons of the press who know their readers
Employ to write their more appalling leaders,
Instead of Satan’s horned and hideous minions.
Clever young men of liberal opinions.
Which brings me up to nineteen-thirty-five;
Six months of film work is another story
I can’t teU now. But, here I am, alive
Knowing the true source of that sense of glory
That still surrounds the England of the Tory,
Come only to the rather tame conclusion
That no msin by himself has life’s solution.
llmow — ^the fact is really not unnerving —
That what is done is done, that no past dies.
That what we see depends on who’s observing,
And what we think on our activities.
That envy warps the virgin as she dries
But ‘Post coitum, homo tristis’ means
The lover must go carefully with the greens.
The boat has brought me to the landing-stage.
Up the long estuary of mud and sedges;
The line I travel has the English gauge;
The engine’s shadow vaults the little hedges;
And summer’s done. I sign the usual pledges
To be a better poet, better man;
I’U really do it this time if I can.
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Letter to Lord Byron
I’m home again, and goodness knows to what.
To read the papers and to earn my bread;
I’m home to Europe where I may be shot;
‘I’m home again’, as William Morris said,
‘And nobody I really care for’s dead.’
I’ve got a round of visits now to pay.
So I must finish this another day,
END OF PART IV
212
Chapter XIV
Letter to Kristian Andremson, Esq,
]\Iy Dear Kristian Andreirsson,
In Reylqavik I made you a promise that I would send
you my impressions of yomr country, and now I am back
at home I must do my best to fulfil it, a small return
indeed for all your unwearied hospitality to us, and for
your wife’s delicious pancakes. Though I question whether
the reactions of the tourist are of much value; without
employment in the country he visits, his knowledge of its
economic and social relations is confined to the study of
official statistics and the gossip of tea-tables; ignorant of
the language his judgment of character and culture is
limited to the superficial; and the length of his visit, in
my case only three months, precludes him from any real
intimacy with his material. At the best he only observes
what the inhabitants know already; at the worst he is
guilty of glib generalisations based on inadequate and
often incorrect data. Moreover, whatever his position in his
own country, the social status of a tourist in a foreign land
is always that of a rentier — as far as his hosts are con-
cerned he is a person of independent means — and he will
see them with a rentier’s eye: the price of a meal or the
civility of a porter will strike him more forcibly than a rise
in the number of cancer cases or the corruption of the
judicial machine. Finally the remoteness of Iceland,
213
Letter to Kristian Andreirsson, Esq.
coupled with its literary and political history, make it a
country which, if visited at all, is visited by people with
strong, and usually romantic, preconceptions. Few English
people take an interest in Iceland, but in those few the
interest is passionate. My father, for example, is such a
one, and some of the most vivid recollections of my child-
hood are hearing him read to me Icelandic folk-tales and
sagas, and I know more about Northern mythology than
Greek. Archbishop van Kroil, who visited Iceland in 1772,
makes an observation which all tourists would do well to
remember —
‘You must not’, he says, ‘in this place apply to me the
story which Helvetius tells of a clergyman and a fine lady
who together observed the spots in the moon, which the
former took for church steeples and the latter for a pair
of happy lovers. I know that we frequently imagine to
have really found what we most think of, or most wish
for.’ He might have further added, that when we fail to
find it we often rush to the opposite extreme of disappoint-
ment.
, I do not intend to expatiate upon the natural beauties
of your island: to you they need no advertisement and for
the tourist there are many guide books; the Great Geysir
will draw its crowds without any help from me. Besides,
there is an English poem with the sentiments of which I
entirely sympathise.
Biography
Is better than Geography,
Geography’s about maps.
Biography’s about chaps.
As I am going to be ficank about what I disliked, I must say
at once that I enjoyed my visit enormously; that, except
on one minor occasion, I met with tmvarying kindness and
hospitality; and that as far as the people themselves are
214
Letter to Kristian Andreirsson^ Esq.
concerned, I can think of none among whom I should
prefer to be exiled.
Physique and Clothes
I find the physical standard of the Icelanders, both in
health and looks, high compared with most European
countries, but not as high perhaps as the Norwegians. On
the whole the men seem better looking than the women. It
is all the more pity, therefore, that the average taste in
clothes should be so poor. I know that Englishwomen are
the worst dressed in the world, but that is no excuse for
Iceland. I have seldom seen worse clothes, for both sexes,
than I saw in the shops in Reykjavik; flashier and more
discordant in colour. This is, I know partly a question of
money, but not entirely. The Icelandic women could be
twice as well dressed for the same expenditure.
Character
This is a silly t hin g to write about. I can’t believe that
the character of one nation is much different from that of
another, or does not have the same variations. In any case
the tomdst sees nothing important. Like others before me
I admired nearly all the farmers I met enormously; I saw
none of that boorishness and yokel stupidity that one sees
in the country in England. On the other hand I felt that
many of the people in the towns were demoralised by
living in them. This is natmal. Towns take a lot of getting
used to, and one must be much richer, if one is to live
decently in them, than one need be in the country. The
two obvious faults I noticed were impunctuality, which is
trivial, and drunkenness, which is silly but not to be
wondered at when it is almost impossible to get a decent
drink in the country. The beer is filthy, wine is prohibitive
in price, and there is nothing left but whisky, which is not
a good drink.
215
Letter to Kristian Andreirsaon, Esq.
A Norwegian fish merchant told me that he did not like
doing business with Icelanders, but personally I fotmd
them more honest than most people I have met. I am told
that politics are very corrupt — ^natural perhaps in a
country where everyone knows everyone else personally
but I have no means of verifying or contradicting this.
As regards their emotional life, I found the Icelander,
certainly as compared with the Englishman, very direct,
normal, and free from complexes, but whether that is a
good or a bad thing, I cannot decide.
Manners
The Icelander seems to me to have beautiful natural
manners, but rather imperfect artificial ones. By artificial
ones, I mean those which do not depend on an instinctive
feeling for other people, but have to be learnt for a com-
plicated social life. Mackenzie, writing in 1810, said: ‘The
unrestrained evacuation of saliva seems to be a fashion
all over Iceland.’ It seems to be so still.
Wealth and Class Distinctions
It is an observation frequently made by bourgeois
visitors that in Iceland there are no rich and no poor. At
first sight this seems to be true. There are no mansions
those in Mayfair, and no hovels like those in the East End.
Wages and the general standard of living are high in com-
parison with other cotmtries; and there is less apparent
class distinction than in any other capitalist country. But
when one remembers that Iceland has an area larger than
Ireland, a population smaller than Brighton, and some of
the richest fishing grounds in the world, one is not con-
vinced that the wages could not be higher and the
differences less. I saw plenty of people whose standard of
living I should not like to have to share, and a few whose
wealth made them arrogant, ostentatious, and vulgar. In
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Letter to Kristian Andreirsson^ Esq.
England there are certain traditional ways of living and
spending for rich people which at least give them a
certain grace. In Iceland there are none.
Education and Culture
The home of some of the finest prose in the world, with
a widespread knowledge of verse and its technique, and
100% literacy, Iceland has every reason to be proud of
herself, and if I make certain criticisms, it is not because
I do not appreciate their achievements, but because from
a country which has done so much one expects still more.
In education my general impression was that the general
standard was high; and I think the custora of students
working on farms in the summer should provide the best
possible balance of academic and manual education —
indeed under these unusual circumstances I should like to
see the academic education more classical — Greek and
manual labour seem to me the best kind of education. But
the higher grades, the sixth form and University teaching
do not seem to me so good. I know this is almost entirely
a' question of money. The only suggestion I can make is
that there should be a special school for bright children,
picked from all over the island by a scholarship examina-
tion.
As regards general culture, it is high, but not as high as
some accounts would lead one to believe. While in the
country I heard a kitchen-maid give an excellent criticism
of a medieval saga, in the towns on the other hand, par-
ticularly Reykjavik, there were obviously many people
who had lost their specifically Icelandic culture, and had
gained no other. In general, while literature seems fairly
widely appreciated, there is almost no architecture, no
drama, and little knowledge of painting or music.
I know that this is inevitable. I know that the day of a
self-contained national culture is over, that Iceland is far
217
Letter to Kristian Andreirsson, Esq.
from Europe, that the first influences of Europe are always
the worst ones, and that the development of a truly Euro-
pean culture is slow and expensive. But I am convinced
that the cultural future of Iceland depends on the extent
to which she can absorb the best of the Eiuropean tradi-
tions, and make them her own.
The only suggestions I can make have probably been
thought of before, hut I give them for what they may be
worth.
Owing to cmrency problems, it is difl&cult for Icelanders
to buy books. Apart from the local town fibraries, there-
fore, there should he one first-class lending library of the
best European books, particularly contemporary, serving
the whole of the island.
Obviously Iceland cannot afford to buy pictures, but to-
day reproductions are so good that they could with great
profit he placed in galleries and schools. Music is more
difficult. The Broadcasting Station does much with
gramophone records, but could I think do more. I don’t
like the Scandinavian passion for male choirs, which cuts
one off from the vast bulk of choral music.
Lastly, a small country like Iceland should he an ideal
place for a really live drama — as in Ireland. This depends
solely on writers — of whom there are plenty — and a few
enthusiastic amateurs in a small room. To start by build-
ing an enormous state theatre which you can’t afford to
finish, is starting at the wrong end.
General
Most of the hooks about Iceland which I have read
speak as if it were a nation of farmers. In point of fact, the
majority live in towns, and pretty grim a town like
Siglufjordur is too. To me this is the most important
fact about Iceland. The present time is a critical one. I
see what was once a society and a cidture of independent
218
Letter to Kristian Andreirsson, Esq.
peasant proprietors, becoming, inevitably, urbanised and
in danger of becoming — ^not so inevitably — ^proletaria-
nised for the benefit of a few, who on account of their small
number and geographical isolation, can never build up a
capitalist culture of their own.
A town and a town life which are worth having are
expensive, and in a small and not conspicuously wealthy
country like Iceland I am inclined to believe that they can
only be realised by anyone, let alone the masses, in a
socialist community.
Well, then, here are my impressions. I have tried to
express them as simply and directly as I could, and can
only hope that you wOl be less conscious of their super-
ficiality than I am.
When next you come to England I shall have my
revenge by making you do the same for me.
With kindest regards to your wife and yourself.
Yours sincerely,
W. H. A.
219
Chapter XV
Letter to William Coldstream, Esq,
N ow the three ride from Hraensnef to Reykholt ’wrhere they
stayed two nights. Thence they went to Reykj avik and took
ship to Isafjordur. Joachim was the vice-consul, a man
well spoken of. He fotmd them a motor-boat to take them
to Melgraseyri in Isafjordardjup. The name of the farmer
was Olafur. He had six foster children. Louis fell sick and
remained in his bed but Auden and Michael rode to Or-
muK where they were very hospitably entertained. After
three days they all returned to Isafjordur and dwelt at the
Salvation Army Hostel there. They did not go out of doors
much but spent the day drinking brandy and playing
cards. People said they had not behaved very well. Now it
is the end of summer and they sail oversea to England. In
the summer Louis and Auden published a book.
This, Bill, is a little donnish experiment in objective
narrative.
‘But Landscape,’ cries the Literary Supplement,
‘You must have Landscape’:
And the historian of the Human Consciousness;
‘You can’t put the clock back. Not since Montaigne’;
And the reviewer taking the Russians out of a hamper;
‘It’s simply not Tolstoi’:
220
Letter to William Coldstream, Esq.
And tte professional noveKst in a flash;
‘Too easy. No dialogue.’
And the common reader yawning;
‘I want more love life.’
But Landscape’s so dull
if you haven’t Lawrence’s wonderful wooziness.
My private reflections are only what you’d expect from an
artist and a gentleman.
The poet’s eye is not one from which nothing is hid
Nor the straightforward diary of a nice English schoolboy
really much use.
And love life — I’m sorry, dear reader — ^is something
I always soft pedal.
But Horrebow came here and wrote a chapter on snakes
The chapter has only one sentence.
Hooker came here and made a list of the plants
Henderson came here with Bibles
And looked at the Geysir and thought
‘The Lord could stop that if he wanted’
Lord Dufferin got tight with the Governor and spoke in
dog-latin
And Morris opened his letters from England
And wondered at people’s calmness.
They can get them all from a public library
This letter’s for you.
A reminder of Soho Square and that winter in horrible
London
When we sat in the back passage pretending to work
While the camera boys told dirty stories
And George capped them all with his one of the major in
India
Who went to a ball with dysentery
told it in action
221
Letter to William Coldstream j Esq.
Till we sneaked ont for coffee and discussed our colleagues
And were suspected, quite rightly, of being disloyal.
Especially you, whose tongue is the most malicious I know.
But after we’d tom them to pieces, we turned our atten-
tion to Art
Upstairs in the Comer House, in the hall with the phallic
pillars
And before the band had finished a pot pourri from
Wagner
We’d scrapped Significant Form, and voted for Subject,
Hence really this letter.
I’m bringing a problem.
Call it as Henry James might have done in a preface
The Presentation of the Given Subject
The problem of every writer of travels;
For Life and his publisher hand him his theme on a plate:
‘You went to such and such places with so-and-so
And such and such things occurred.
Now do what you can.’
But I can’t.
The substantial facts are as I have stated above
No bandits, no comic passport olB&cials
No hairbreadth escapes, the only test of endurance
A sixteen mile scramble m gumboots to look at dead
whales
No monuments and only a little literary history
Gish the Soursop was killed on the other side of the moun-
t£iins
No views? 0 dozens of course. But I sympathise with the
sailors
^Instead of a girl or two in a taxi
We were compelled to look at the Black Sea^ and the
Black Sea
IsnH all if$ cracked up to 6e.’
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Letter to William Coldstream^ Esq.
An artist you said, if I remember you rightly,
An artist you said, in the waiting room at Euston
Looking towards that dictator’s dream of a staircase
An artist you said, is both perceiver and teller, the spy and
the gossip
Something between the slavey in Daumier’s caricature
The one called Nadadada
And the wife of a minor canon.
Very well then, let’s start with perceiving
Let me pretend that I’m the impersonal eye of the camera
Sent out by God to shoot on location
And we’ll look at the rushes together.
Face of an Icelandic Professor
Like a child’s self expression in plasticine
A child from the bottom form.
Then a lot out of focus.
Now a pan round a typical sitting-room
Bowl of postcards on table — ^Harmonium with Brahm’s
Sapphic Ode
Pi-picture — ^little girl crosses broken ravine bridge pro-
tected by angel.
Cut to saddling ponies — close up of farmer’s hands at a
girth strap
Dissolve to long shot of Reykholt school
Corbusier goes all Northern.
Close up of Gynaecologist Angler offering me brandy
In the next war he said
There’d be one anaesthetist to at least four tables.
Mid-shot of fox farm
Black foxes in coops — ^white tips to their tails
The rest N. G. I’m afraid.
Now there is a whaling station during the lunch hour
The saw is for cutting up jaw-bones
223
Letter to William Coldstream, Esq.
The whole place was slippery with filth — ^with guts and
decaying flesh —
like an artist’s palette —
We were tired as you see and in shocking tempers.
Patreksfjordur by moonlight, shot as the boat left.
Night effects, though I say it, pretty O.K.
Our favourite occupation — ^the North Pole Caf6
I’ve got some shots later of hands of rummy —
Louis’s scandalous luck caused a lot of ill feeling.
Now going up leaf jordardjup — the motorboat cost 40
kronur.
The hills are a curious shape — ^like vaulting-horses in a
gymnasium
The light was rotten.
What on earth is all this ? 0 yes, a dog fight at one of the
farms
Too confused to show much.
0 and this is Louis drawing the Joker as usual.
And here’s a shot for the Chief— epic, the Drifters tradition
The end of a visit, the motor-boat’s out of the screen on the
left
It was blowing a hurricane.
Harbour at Isafjordur — ^late summer evening
‘Tatty’, Basil would call it I think, but I rather like it.
Well. That’s the lot.
As you see, no crisis, no continuity.
Only heroic cutting could save it
Perhaps MacNaughten might do it
Or Legge.
But I’ve cut a few stills out, in case they’d amuse you.
So much for perceiving. Now telling. That’s easy.
Louis read George EUot in bed
And Michael and I climbed the cliff behind Bxaensnef
224
Letter to William Coldstream, Esq.
And I was so frightened, my dear.
And we all rowed on the lake and giggled becanse the boat
leaked
And the farmer was angry when we whipped his horses
And Louis had a dream — ^unrepeatable but he repeated it —
And the lady at table had diabetes, poor thing
And Louis dreamt of a bedroom with four glass walls
And I was upset because they told me I didn^t look
innocent
(I liked it really of course)
And the whaling station wouldn’t offer us any coffee
And Michael didn’t speak for three hours after that
And the first motor-boat we hired turned back because of
the weather
‘^A hot spot’ he said but we and the vice consul didn’t
believe him
And that cost an extra ten kronur.
And it was after ten when we really got there and could
discover a landing
And we walked up to the farm in the dark
Over a new mown meadow, the dogs running in and out of
the lamplight
And I woke in the night to hear Louis vomiting
Something like a ship siren
And I played ‘0 Isis and Osiris’ on the heirmonium next
day
And we read the short stories of Somerset Maugham
aloud to each other
And the best one was called His Excellency.
And I said to Michael ‘All power corrupts’ and he was very
angry about it.
And he ate thirty-two cakes in an afternoon
And the soup they gave us the last day tasted of hair oil
And we had to wrap the salt fish in an envelope not to hurt
their feelings
p
225
Letter to William Coldstream^ Esq.
And we stayed at the Salvation Army — ^notices: no cards
allowed,
So we played in our bedroom
And we drank Spanish brandy out of our tooth mugs,
trying to like it
And feeling like schoolboys, hiding our sins from the maid.
And the film that night was in English, and the lovers
were very vehement
But the loud speaker was badly adjusted and they
squawked like hens
And Louis stood on the quay muttering Greek in his beard
Like a character out of the Cantos —
dAAoc Kal obs eO^Aco Kai ^^A5o|Jiai fipccra ix&vra,
oiKaSs t’ sAOsiievai Kai iSsafiai vootiijiov fjpap.
But that wasn’t the only thing he said
Back at Hraensnef after a heavy silence
He suddenly spoke. ‘God made the mice,’ he said
‘And the mice made the Scheiss’
And again he said ‘The dark lady of the Bonnets’
And Michael said ‘You like nothing
But smoking, drinking coffee, and writing’
And he wrote on my postcard to Christopher ‘We have our
moods.’
That’s all except the orchestral background
The news from Europe interwoven with our behaving
The pleasant voice of the wireless announcer, like a con-
sultant surgeon
‘Your case is hopeless. I give you six months.’
And the statements of famous economists;
Like cook coming in and saying triumphantly
‘Rover’s taken the joint, ma’am.’
That’s all the externals, and they’re not my pigeon
While the purely subjective feelings,
The heart-felt exultations and the short despairs
226
Letter to William Coldstream, Esq.
Require a musician. Bach, say, or Schubert.
But here is my poem, nevertheless, the fruit of that fort-
night
And one too of Louis’s, for comparative reading.
The novelist has one way of stating experience.
The film director another
These are our versions — each man to his medium,
who can ever gaze his fill’,
Farmer and fisherman say,
^On native shore and local hill.
Grudge aching limb or callus on the hand?
Fathers, grandfathers stood upon this land.
And here the pilgrims from our loins shall stand.’
So farmer and fisherman say
In their fortimate heyday:
But Death’s soft answer drifts across
Empty catch or harvest loss
Or an imlucky May.
The earth is an oyster with nothing inside it
Not to be born is the best for man
The end of toil is a bailiff^ s order
Throw down the mattock and dance ivhile you can.
^0 life’s too short for friends who share’,
Travellers think in their hearts,
‘The city’s common bed, the air.
The mountain bivouac and the bathing beach.
Where incidents draw every day from each
Memorable gesture and witty speech.’
So travellers think in their hearts,
Till maHce or circumstance parts
Them from their constant humour:
And shyly Death’s coercive rumour
In the silence starts.
227
Letter to William Coldstream, Esq.
A friend is the old old tale of Narcissus
Not to be horn is the best for man
An a^ive partner in something disgraceful
Change your partner, dance while you can.
‘0 stretch your hands across the sea,’
The impassioned lover cries,
‘Stretch them towards your harm and me.
Our grass is green, and sensual our brief bed.
The stream sings at its foot, and at its head
The mild and vegetarian beasts are fed.’
So the impassioned lover cries
Till his storm of pleasure dies:
From the bedpost and the rocks
Death’s enticing echo mocks.
And his voice replies.
The greater the love, the more false to its object
Not to be born is the best for man
After the kiss comes the impulse to throttle
Break the embraces, dance while you can.
‘I see the guilty world forgiven,’
Dreamer and drunkard sing,
‘The ladders let down out of heaven;
The laurel springing from the martyrs’ blood;
The children skipping where the weepers stood;
The lovers natural, and the beasts all good.’
So dreamer and drunkard sing
Till day their sobriety bring;
Parrotwise with death’s reply
From whelping fear and nesting lie,
Woods and their echoes ring.
The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews
Not to be bom is the best for man
228
Letter to William Coldstream, Esq.
The second best is a formal order
The dancers pattern^ dance while you can.
Dance^ dance, for the figure is easy
The tune is catching and will not stop
Dance till the stars come down with the rafters
Dance, dance, dance till you drop.
W. H. A.
Iceland
No shields now
Cross the knoll,
The hills are duU
With leaden shale,
Whose arms could squeeze
The breath from time
And the climb is long
From cairn to cairn.
Houses are few
But decorous
Inaruiued land
Of sphagnum moss;
Corrugated iron
Farms inherit
The spirit and phrase
Of ancient sagas
Men have forgotten
Anger and ambush.
To make ends meet
Their only business:
The lover riding
In the lonely dale
Hears the plover’s
Single pipe
229
Letter to William Coldstream, Esq.
And feels perhaps
But undefined
The drift of death
In the sombre wind
Deflating the trim
Balloon of lust
In a grey storm
Of dust and grit.
So we who have come
As trippers North
Have minds no match
For this land’s girth;
The glacier’s licking
Tongues deride
Our pride of life.
Our flashy songs.
But the people themselves
Who live here
Ignore the brooding
Fear, the sphinx;
And the radio
With tags of tune
Defies their pillared
Basalt crags.
Whose ancestors
Thought that at last
The end would come
To a blast of horns
And gods would face
The worst in fight.
Vanish in the night
The last, the first
230
Letter to William Coldstream^ Esq.
Nigtt which began
Without device
In ice and rocks,
No shade or shape;
Grass and blood.
The strife of life.
Were an interlude
Which soon must pass
And all go back
Relapse to rock
Under the shawl
Of the ice-caps.
The cape which night
Will spread to cover
The world when the living
Flags are furled.
L. M.
231
Chapter XVI
Letter to Lord Byron
PART V
Autumn is here. The beech leaves strew the lawn;
The power stations take up heavier loads;
The massive lorries shake from dusk till dawn
The houses on the residential roads;
The shops are full of coming winter modes.
Dances have started at the Baths next door
Stray scraps of MS strew my bedroom floor.
I read that there’s a boomlet on in Birmingham,
But what I hear is not so reassuring;
Rumours of War, the B.B.C. confirming ’em.
The prospects for the future aren’t alluring;
No one believes Prosperity enduring,
Not even Wykehamists, whose golden mean
Maintains the All Souls’ Parish Magazine.
The crack between employees and employers
Is obvious already as the nose on
John Gielgud’s face; the keels of new destroyers
Get laid down somehow though all credit’s frozen;
The Pope’s turned protestant at last and chosen,
Thinking it safer in the temporal circs,
The Italian faith against the Russian works.
232
Letter to Lord Byron
England, my England — ^you have been my tutrix —
The Mater, on occasions, of the free,
Or, if you’d rather. Dura Virum Nutrix,
Whatever happens I am bom of Thee;
And Englishmen, all foreigners agree.
Taking them by and large, and as a nation,
AU suffer from an Oedipus fixation.
With all thy faults, of course we love thee still;
We’d better for we have to live with you.
From Rhondda Valley or from Bredon HjII,
From Rotherhithe, or Regent Street, or Kew
We look you up and down and whistle ‘Phew!
, Mother looks odd to-day dressed up in peers.
Slums, aspidistras, shooting-sticks, and queers.’
Cheer up! There’re several singing birds that sing.
There’s six feet six of Spender for a start;
Eliot has really stretched his eagle’s wing.
And Yeats has helped himself to Parnell’s heart;
, This book has samples of MacNeice’s art;
There’s Wyndham Lewis fuming out of sight.
That lonely old volcano of the Right.
I’m marking time because I cannot guess
The proper place to which to send this letter,
c/o Saint Peter or The Infernal Press ?
I’ll try the Press. World-ciJture is its debtor;
It has a list that Faber’s couldn’t better.
For Heaven gets all the lookers for her pains,
But HeU, I think, gets nearly all the brains.
The congregation up there in the former
Are those whose early upbringing was right,
Who never suffered from a childish trauma;
233
Letter to Lord Byron
As babies they were Truby King’s delight;
They’re happy, lovely, but not overbright.
For no one thinks unless a complex makes him.
Or till financial ruin overtakes him.
Complex or Poverty; in short The Trap.
Some set to work to tmderstand the spring;
Others sham dead, pretend to take a nap;
‘It is a motor-boat,’ the madmen sing;
The artist’s action is the queerest thing:
He seems to like it, coiddn’t do without it.
And only wants to tell us all about it.
While Rome is burning or he’s out of sorts
‘Causons, causous, mon bon,’ he’s apt to say,
‘What does it matter while I have these thoughts ?’
Or so I’ve heard, but Freud’s not quite O.K.
No aiiist works a twenty-four hour day.
In bed, asleep or dead, it’s hard to tell
The highbrow from I’homme moyen sensuel.
*Es neiget die weisen zu schonem sich.’
Your lordship’s brow that never wore a hat
Should thank your lordship’s foot that did the trick.
Your mother in a temper cried, ‘Lame Brat!’
Posterity should thank her much for that.
Had she been sweet she surely wotdd have taken
Juan away and saved your moral bacon.
The match of Hell and Heaven was a nice
Idea of Blake’s, but won’t take place, alas.
You can choose either, but you can’t choose twice;
You can’t, at least in this world, change your class;
Neither is alpha plus though both will pass:
And don’t imagine you can write like Dante,
Dive like yom nephew, crochet like your auntie.
234
Letter to Lord Byron
The Great Utopia, free of all complexes.
The Withered State is, at the moment, such
A dream as that of being both the sexes*
I like Wolf’s Goethe-lieder very much.
But doubt if Ganymede* s appeal will touch —
That marvellous cry with its ascending phrases —
Capitalism in its later phases.
Are Poets saved? Well, let’s suppose they are.
And take a peep. I don’t see any books.
Shakespeare is lounging grandly at the bar,
Milton is dozing, judging by his looks,
Shelley is playing poker with two crooks,
Blake’s adding pince-nez to an ad. for players,
Chaucer is buried in the latest Sayers.
Lord Alfred rags with Arthur on the floor,
Housman, all scholarship forgot at last.
Sips up the stolen waters through a straw,
Browning’s complaining that Keats bowls too fast,
And you have been composing as they passed
" Aclerihewon Wordsworth and his tie,
A rather dirty limerick on Pye.
I hope this reaches you in your abode,
This letter that’s already far too long,
Just like the Prelude or the Great North Road;
But here I end my conversational song.
I hope you don’t think mail from strangers wrong.
As to its length, I tell myself you’ll need it.
You’ve all eternity in which to read it.
END OF PART V
235
Chapter XVII
Auden and MacNeice: Their Last
Will and Testament
We, Wystan Hugh Auden and Louis MacNeice,
Brought up to speak and write the English tongue .
Being led in the eighteenth year of the Western
Peace
To the duck-shaped mountainous island with the
Danish King,
At Melgraseyri in Isaf jordardjup
Under the eaves of a glacier, considering
The autumns, personal and public, which already
creep
Through city-crowded Europe, and those in want
Who soon must look up at the winter sky and weep.
Do set down this, our will and testament:
Believing man responsible for what he does.
Sole author of his terror and his content.
The duty his to learn, to make his choice;
On each the guilt of failure, and in each the power
To shape, create and move, love and rejoice.
Poor prospects now have any who would insure
Against the blight of crops — ^blood in the furrows —
And who knows which of our legacies will endinre?
236
Last Will and Testament
First to OTir ancestors who lie in barrows
Or xuider nameless cairns on heathery hills
Or where the seal-swim crashes the island-narrows
Or in Jacobean tomb, whose scrolls and skulls
Carry off death with an elegant inscription.
The Latin phrasing which beguiles and dulls
The bitter regrets at the loved body’s corruption
Or those who merely share the prayer that is
muttered
For many sunk together in war’s eruption.
To all, clay-bound or chalk-bound, stiff or scattered.
We leave the values of their periods.
The things which seemed to them the things that
mattered,
Pride in family and in substantial goods,
Comfort, ambitioii, honour and elegance.
The jealous eye upon wives and private woods,
The hand alert for vengeance, the brow which once
Contracted was unforgiving, proud of extremes
Not bearing easily the deserter or the dunce.
L. And to my own in particular whose rooms
Were whitewashed, small, soothed with the smoke of
peat.
Looking out on the Atlantic’s gleams and glooms.
Of whom some lie among brambles high remote
Above the yellow falls of Ballysodare
Whose hands were hard with handling cart and boat
I leave the credit for that which may endure
Within myself of peasant vitality and
Of the peasant’s sense of humour and I am sure
237
Last Will and Testament
That those forefathers clamped in the boggy ground
Shotdd have my thanks for any Ariadne’s thread
Of instinct following which I too have foimd
My way through the forking paths of briars and mud.
My thanks I leave them therefore double and next
I leave my father half my pride of blood
And also my admiration who has fixed
Hia pulpit out of the reach of party slogans
And all the sordid challenges and the mixed
Motives of those who bring their drums and dragons
To silence moderation and free speech
Bawling from armoured cars and carnival wagons; ,
And to my stepmother I leave her rich
Placid delight in detailed living who adds
Hour to hour as if it were stitch to stitch
Calm in the circle of her household gods;
Item, to my sister Elizabeth what she lacks —
The courage to gamble on the doubtful odds
And in the end a retreat among Irish lakes
And farmyard smells and the prism of the Irish air;
Item, to Dan my son whenever he wakes
To the consciousness of what his limits are
I leave the ingenuity to transmute
His limits into roads and travel far;
Lastly to Mary living in a remote
Country I leave whatever she wotdd remember
Of hers and mine before she took that boat.
Such memories not being necessarily lumber
And may no chance, unless she wills, delete them
And may her hours be gold and without number.
238
Last Will and Testament
W. I leave my parents first, seeing that without them
There’s no fame or affection I could win at all
^ Whatever fame my poems may collect about them.
The Royal College of Physicians in Pall Mall
And a chair in Preventive Medicine, I leave my
father.
And the Bewcastle Cross I bequeath to him as well.
The Church of Saint Aidan at Smallheath to my
mother
Where she may pray for this poor world and me.
And a paying farm to Bernard, my eldest brother.
Item, to John, my second, my library
And may my lifetime’s luck fall on his head
That he may walk on Everest before he die.
Next Edward Upward and Christopher Isherwood
I here appoint my joint executors
To judge my work if it be bad or good.
My manuscripts and letters, aU to be theirs
AH copyrights and royalties therefrom
I leave them as their property in equal shares.
W. L. We leave to Stanley Baldwin, our beloved P.M.,
The false front of Lincoln Cathedral, and a school
Of Empire poets. As for his Cabinet, to them
We leave their National character and strength of
wiH.
To Winston ChurchiH Ballinrobe’s dry harbour
And Randolph, un bel pezzo, in a codicil.
To Sir Maurice Hankey for his secretarial labour
The Vicar of Bray’s discretion; and to Lord Lloyd
We leave a flag-day and a cavalry sabre.
239
Last Will and Testament
To Vickers the Gran. Chaco (for agents must be paid).
The Balkan Conscience and the sleepless night we
think
The inevitable diseases of their dangerous trade.
The stones of Kaldidalur to Hambro’s Bank
And the soapworks in the County of Cheshire we
gladly grant
To Ramsay MacDonald who’s so lucid and frank.
To the Church of England Austen Leigh, The Quant-
um Theory, Stanford in B flat and the Chief Scout’s
horn
A curate’s bicycle, and a portable second hand font.
A Year’s sxrbscription to the Gospel Magazine
With which is incorporated the Protestant Deacon,
And a Gentle Shepherd hat but not too clean
We leave the Nonconformists, as a Christmas token,
And all the lives by Franco gently stopped
We leave to Rome, and for the doctrines she has
spoken
The cock that crew before St. Peter wept.
And to each tribal chief or priestly quack
We leave the treachery of his sect or sept.
Item, to the Bishop of London a hockey-stick
And an Old Marlburian blazer; item to Frank,
The Groupers’ Pope, we leave his personal pick
Of a hundred converts from Debrett — ^we think
Most of them, he will find, have quite a song
Of things to confess from limericks to drink;
Item, we leave to that old diehard Inge
A little Christian joy; item, to Sir
Robert Baden-Powell a piece of string;
240
Last Will and Testament
Item, to the Primate, pillar of savoir faire,
An exotic entourage; item, to Pat
McCormick a constant audience on the air.
Item, to those who spend their lives in the wet
Lost six counties of the Emerald Isle
We leave our goloshes and a shrimping net;
Item, to Lord Craigavon that old bull
With a horse’s face we leave an Orange drum
For after-dinner airs, when he feels full;
Item, to De Valera we leave the dim
Celtic twilight of the higher economics
And a new surname among the seraphim;
Item, to all those Irish whose d3m.amics
Lead them in circles we leave a cloistered life,
A fellowship say in botany or ceramics.
Item, talking of fellowships, we leave
To that great institution of dreaming spires
With all its lost reputations up its sleeve
A kinder clime for academic careers
Than Thames and Cowley afford, say Medicine Hat
Where petrol fumes will spare the imeasy ears
Of undergraduates growing among the wheat;
And we leave the proctors some powerful opera
glasses
And half a dozen bulldogs with Lovelock’s feet;
Item, to Convocation a bust of Moses,
A lambskin copy of Excerpta de Statutis
And all the howlers of our Latin proses;
241
Q
Last Will and Testament
Item, to the Oxford O.T.C. otxt puttees
And to the Oxford Appointments Board some gay-
jobs in Bulawayo or Calaguttis;
Item, to Sir Farquhar Buzzard a raspberry;
Item, to the College of All Souls the game
Of pleonasmus and tautology;
Item, to the Fellows of King’s beside the Cam
A bunch of pansies and white violets;
And to all deans and tutors money for jam;
Item, to Wittgenstein who writes such hits
As the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
We leave aU readers who can spare the wits;
Item, to I. A. Richards who like a mouse
Nibbles linguistics with the cerebral tooth
We leave a quiet evening in a boarding-house
Where he may study the facts of birth and death
In their inexplicable oddity
And put a shilling in the slot for brains and breath.
And Julian Huxley we leave an ant, a bee,
An axolotl and Aldous; item, to Bert-
rand Russell we leave belief in God (D.V.).
Item, we leave a bottle of invalid port
To Lady Astor; item, the Parthenon
On the Calton Hill to Basil de Selincourt.
Item, we leave the phases of the moon
To Mr. Yeats to rock his bardic sleep;
And to Dr. C-yiil Norwood a new spittoon;
And Tubby Clayton can have some gingerpop;
And General O’DuflFy can take the Harp That Once
Started and somehow was never able to stop.
242
Last Will and Testament
We leave a mens sana qui mal y pense
To the Public Schools of England, plus Ian Hay
That the sons of gents may have La Plus Bonne
Chance.
L. To Marlborough College I leave a lavatory
With chromium gadgets and the Parthenon frieze;
W. And Holt three broken promises from me.
W. L. Item, to the B.B.C. as a surprise
The Great Geysir; the Surrealists shall have
J. A. Smith as an Objet Trouv€ in disguise.
To the Royal Academy we leave the 7 and 5
And to the Geological Museum in Jermyn Street
All metaphysicians and logicians stiH alive.
Item, the Imperial War Museum shall get
Professor Lindemann; and South K. a drove —
In the Science Block the Jeans and Eddington set;
And to the Natural History Wing we give
The reviewers on the Observer, the whole damn bunch.
And Beachcomber and the beasts that will not live.
The Dock, in all respect, we leave the Bench
And Shell Mex House we leave to H. G. Wells
To accommodate his spawn of Uebermensch.
Item, to those expert with clubs eind halls
And double bores and huntin’ and fishin’ tackles
Some kippered tigers for their study walls;
To the Fogerty School some tropes of the Reverend
TickeU’s,
And the statue of Peter Pan we leave by halves —
The upper to A. A. Milne, the lower to Beverley
Nichols.
243
Last Will and Testament
Item, to Lady Oxford we leave some curves
And a first edition of Dodo; and to that great man
J. L. Garvin the civilisation he deserves.
Item, we leave our old friend Rupert Doone
Something dynamic and his own theatre
And a setting of his Unconscious on the bassoon:
Item, to Daan Hubrecht a Martello tower,
To Hugh M'Diarmid a gallon of Red Biddy,
And the bones of Shakespeare to Sir Archie Flower.
Item, in winter when the ways are muddy
We leave our gumboots tried on Iceland rocks
To the M‘Gillicuddy of M‘Gillicuddy,
To keep his feet dry climbing in the Reeks;
Item, we leave a portable camping oven
To Norman Douglas, last of the Ancient Greeks;
And to John Fothergill a Comer House in Heaven.
Item, we leave a tube of Pond’s Cold Cream
To the debutantes of 1937.
Item, to Maurice Bowra we leave a dome
Of many-coloured glass; item, to Father
Knox a crossword puzzle or a palindrome.
Item, to Compton Mackenzie a sprig of heather,
To James Douglas a knife that will not cut.
And to Roy Campbell a sleeping-svit of leather.
Item, we leave the mentality of the pit
To James Agate and to Ivor Brown,
And to Edith Sitwell we leave her Obiit.
Item, we leave a little simple fun
To allbeUettrists and the staff of Punch;
And a faith period to Naomi Mitchison.
244
Last Will and Testament
And to Sir Oswald (please forgive the stench
Which taints our parchment from that purulent
name)
We leave a rather unpleasant word in French,
Item, we leave to that poor soul A.M.
Ludovici the Venus of Willendorf
(a taste we neither condone nor yet condemn.)
Item, to the King’s Proctor and his staff
We leave a skeleton key and Die Untergang
Des Abendlandes — a book to make them laugh.
Item, a vestry-meeting to Douglas Byng,
The marriage of universals to Geoffrey Mure,
And Sir James Barrie to Sir Truby King.
And to that Society whose premier law
Is the Preservation of Ancient Monuments
We leave Sir Bindon Blood and Bernard Shaw.
Item, to Dr. Stopes we leave an ounce
Of cocoa-butter and some transcendental love
And may she mix them in the right amoimts.
And to the most mischievous woman now alive
We leave a lorry-load of moral mud
And may her Stone Age voodoo never thrive.
And to Evelyn Underhill a diviner’s rod;
The Albert Memorial to Osbert Lancaster;
And Messrs. Nervo and Knox to the Eisteddfodd.
And to Ladislas Peri we leave a grand career
As sculptor in concrete, God knows what, or brick;
And Bryan Guinness shall have some Burton beer.
245
Last Will and Testament
Item, an antidote for camera shock
And a low-brow ciixiosity in objects to all
Painters and sculptors in metal, wood, or rock.
To modem architects who can design so well
Kitchens and bathrooms, a gentle reminder that
Material pangs are not the only pains of Hell.
To all the technique that composers now have got
We add a feeling for the nature of the human voice
And the love of a tune which sometimes they have
not.
To our fellow writers, to the whole literary race
The Interest itself in all its circumstances
That each may see his vision face to face.
To our two distinguished colleagues in confidence,
To Stephen Spender and Cecfi. Day Lewis, we assign
Our minor talents to assist in the defence
Of the European Tradition and to carry on
The Human heritage. [W.] And the Slade School
I choose
For William Coldstream to leave his mark upon.
W. L. To the Group Theatre that has performed our plays
We leave the proceeds of the Entertainment Tax
To pay for sets, and actors on week-days.
W. To the Post OflSice Film Unit, a film on Sex
And to Grierson, its director, something really big
To sell, I offer with my thanks and my respects.
For my friend Benjamin Britten, composer, 1 beg
That fortune send him soon a passionate affair.
W. L. To Barbara Hepworth, sculptress, we leave Long
Meg
246
Last Will and Testament
And her nine daughters. A pure form, very pure.
We leave Clive Bell, and to Ben Nicolson a post
At Murphy’s where he’ll soon make good, we’re
sure.
May the critic I. M. Parsons feel at last
A creative impulse, and may the Dictatorship
Of the Holy Spirit suppress the classic past
Of Herbert Read. To Peter Fleming a cap
For exploration. We find him very jolly
But think mock modesty does not improve a chap.
We leave the Martyr’s Stake at AbergwiUy
To Wyndham Lewis with a box of soldiers (blonde)
Regretting one so bright should be so silly.
We hope one honest conviction may at last be
foimd
For Alexander Korda and the Balcon Boys
And the Stavisky Scandal in picture and sound
We leave to Alfred Hitchcock with sincerest praise
Of Sabotage, To Berthold Viertel just the script
For which he’s waited all his passionate days.
We wish the cottage at Piccadilly Circus kept
For a certain novelist, to write thereon
The spiritual cries at which he’s so adept.
To Lord Berners, wit, to keep his memory green
The follies of fifty coimties upon one condition
That he ■write the history of the Kin g and Queen.
L. And I to all my friends would leave a ration
Of bread and wdt against the days which slant
Upon us black with nihilistic passion.
247
Last Will and Testament
Item I leave my old friend Anthony Blunt
A copy of Marx and £1000 a year
And the picture of Love Locked Out by Holman
Hunt.
Item to Archie Burton I leave my car
Which took the comat at a crossroads in King’s
Heath
And bringing me twice in jeopardy at the bar
AH but left me a convict or a wraith;
Item I leave a large viridian pot
Of preserved ginger to my dear Ann Faith
Shepard who shall also have my Bokhara mat
And Graham Shepard shall have my two cider mugs,
My thirty rose-trees and, if he likes, my hat.
Item I leave my copies of Our Dogs
To Mrs. Norton who lives at Selly Hill:
And to Victor Rothschild the spermatozoa of frogs.
Item my golf clubs to Ernest Ludwig Stahl
Which after a little treatment with emery paper
Should serve him well around the veldt and kraal;
And Vera Stahl his sister I leave an upper
Seat at Twickenham for the Irish match
To be followed by a very r6cherch6 supper.
And Mrs. Dodds I leave a champion bitch
And a champion dog and a litter of champion pups
AH to be born and weaned without a hitch:
And Professor Dodds I leave the wind which whips
The Dublin Moimtains and the Knockmealdowns
And may he forgive my acadexnic slips.
248
Last Will and Testament
Item to Betsy my borzoi a dish of bones
And 7/6 for her licence for next year
And may her name be scratched on the Abbey stones:
Item to Littleton Powys more and more
I leave my admiration and all the choice
Flowers and birds that grace our English shore.
Item to Wilfired Blunt a pretty piece
Of the best rococo and a crimson shirt
Appliqued all over with fleurs-de-lys:
Item to J. R. Hilton a Work of Art
And a dream of the infinitesimal calculus
Bolstered on apples in an apple-cart.
Item to Mr. and Mrs. McCance a mouse
That will keep their cats in one perpetual smile:
Item to Moore Crosthwaite a concrete house
Built by Gropius: item to George MoreU
Perpetual luck at the dogs: item to Tom
Robinson a blue check homer that flies like hell
And makes his fortune: item a quiet room
To Denis Binyon to practise his HeUenistic
Greek in readiness for the Day of Doom:
W. L. Item to dear John Waterhouse a gymnastic
Exercise before breakfast every day
(A better cure for the figure than wearing elastic)
And a grand piano imder a flowering tree
To sate his versatile and virile taste
From the Hammerklavier to the Isle of Capri.
Item to Gordon Herrickx a titan’s wrist
Strong to the evening from commercial stone
And may his glyptic fantasy persist:
249
Last Will and Testament
Item, to Robert Medley some ceUophane
And a pack of jokers; item, a box of talc
To Geoffrey Tandy in case be shaves again.
Item to Humphrey Thackrah a flowered silk
Dressing-gown and a bottle of Numero Cinq:
Item to Isiah Berlin a saucer of milk:
L. Item to Leila Sargent Florence a drink
After hours and a salad of chicory:
Item to my cousin Oonagh a coat of mink:
Item to the Brothers Melville the artist’s eye
And may their beliefs not hamper them for ever:
Item to Guy Morgan and also Guy
Burgess and Ben Bonas and Hector Maciver
And Robert Dunmett and Norman Cameron
I leave a keg of whiskey, the sweet deceiver:
Item I leave to my old friend Adrian
Green Armitage who now is a stockbroker,
A jolly life as an English gentleman:
Item to Helen Cooke I leave an acre
Of Cornish moor to run her spaniels in
On perfect terms with the local butcher and baker:
Item I leave a sun which will always shine
To Elspeth Duxbury and a ginger cat
Which will always be washed and groomed by half-
past nine:
Item to Ivan Rowe a gaUon pot
Of Stephens’ blue-black ink: item to Walter
Allen I leave the tale of a tiny tot
250
Last Will and Testament
On the Midland Regional and from the welter
Of hand-to-month journalism and graft
I hope his brains afford him sufficient shelter:
Item to Edith Marcuse I leave a deft
Hand at designing and an adequate job.
And to Coral Brown camellias on her right and left.
Item to Mrs. Hancock a koala cub:
Item to Cicely Russell and R. D. Smith
The joint ownership of a Shropshire pub:
Item to Bernard and Nora Spencer a path
To a life of colour, ample and debonair:
Item to old John Bowie a Turkish bath:
Item to Diana Sanger an open fire
A wire fox terrier and a magnolia tree;
And to Ruthven Todd the works of Burns entire.
Item to Curigwen Lewis the Broadway sky
Blazing her name in lights; item to Jack
Chase my best regards and a case of rye:
Item to C. B. Canning a private joke:
Item a clerihew to Christopher Holme
And may he not be always completely broke:
Item to David Gretton a lovely time
Arranging broadcasts from the Parish Hall:
Item to May Lawrence a gin and Hme:
Item to Francis Curtis, once Capel,
I leave my wonder at his Oxford Past
Which to my knowledge was without parallel:
W. L. Item to John Betjeman (the most
Remarkable man of his time in any position)
We leave a Leander tie and Pugin’s ghost
251
Last Will and Testament
Attd a box of crackers and St. Pancras Station
And the Church of Ireland Gazette and our
confidence
That he will be master of every situation.
A Chinese goose to Harold Acton we advance.
W. Item my passport to Heioz Nedermeyer
And to John Andrews, to rub with after a dance,
As many L.M.S. towels as he may require.
W. L. Item to E. M. Forster a bright new notion
For a novel with a death roll, 0 dear, even higher.
And to St. John Ervine, ornament of the nation.
His Ulster accent and les neiges d’antan
And a little, if possible, accurate information;
And some new games with time to J. W. Dunne,
To Andy Corry a six-foot belemnite,
And to Noel Coward a place in the setting sun;
To Dylan Thomas a leek on a gold plate;
Item we leave to that great mind Charles Madge
Some curious happenings to correlate;
Item to the New Statesman a constant grudge
And a constant smile saying ‘We told you so’,
And to John Sparrow a quarter of a pound of
fudge.
Item, the falling birthrate we leave to Roy
Hanod and Maynard Keynes for pulling together;
To Brian Howard a watch and the painted buoy
That dances at the harbour mouth (which is rather
The po4sie de departs but sooner or later
We all Kke beiug trippers); item to Father
252
Last Will and Testament
D’Arcy, that dialectical disputer,
We leave St. Thomas Aquinas and his paeans —
W. To Neville GoghiU, fellow of Exeter, my tutor,
I leave Das Lebendigste with which to form
alliance
And to Professor Dawkins who knows the Modem
Greeks
I leave the string figure called the Fighting Lions.
W. L. To the barrister, Richard Best, to wear on walks
A speckled boater; to Geoffrey Grigson of Neuo Verse
A strop for his sharp tongue before he talks.
. A terrible double entendre in metre or in prose
To WiUiam Empson; and we leave his own
Post mortem to any doctor who thinks he knows
W . The Inmost Truth. And the New Peace he has won
To Gerald Heard — and to the teacher Maurice Feild
A brilliant pupil as reward for all he’s dpne.
To Geoffrey Hoyland, whose virtues are manifold
An equal love for every kind of nature,
W . L. And to John Davenport a permanent job to hold.
W. For Peggy Garland someone real in every feature.
To Tom her husband, someone to help; and a call
To go a dangerous mission for a fellow creature
To Nancy Coldstream. I hope John Layard will
Find quick ones always to put him on his feet
To OKve Mangeot a good lodger andi, till
The revolution cure her corns, a set
Of comfortable shoes: to Sylvain, her younger son.
My suits to wear when it is really wet.
253
Last Will and Testament
My Morris-Cowley to carry chickens in
To Peter Roger, with a very fine large goat.
And a Healer’s Prize for Robert Moody to win.
W. L. We leave with our best compliments the Isle of Wight
To Robert Graves and Laura Riding, because
An Italian island is no good place to write.
We leave to the Inland Revenue Commissioners
The Channel Islands: for these charming men
Will find there many an undeserving purse.'
W. I leave the wheel at Laxey, Isle of Man,
To Sean Day-Lewis, and the actual island leave
To Mrs Yates of Brooklands, to rest there when she
can.
W. L. The County of Surrey as it stands we give
To Sapper; and all the roadhouses in Herts
To Hilaire Belloc that he may drink and live.
To Quinton Hogg the wardenship of the Cinque
Ports,
And the holy double well of Saint Clethcr to all
Who suffer guilty feelings and irrational thoughts.
To Sebastian Sprott we offer Mortimer’s Hole
W . To snub-nosed Gabriel Carritt the Beetle and Wedge
AndT.F.C. may keep the letter that he stole.
W. L. To Mayfair, Crowland Abbey’s river-lackmg bridge
As symbol of its life. To Grossman, Councillor,
We leave High Oflice, and a wind-swept northern
ridge.
We leave to Cowper Powys Glastonbury Tor
The White Horses to the Horse Guards, and the
vale of Evenlode
To all those shell-shocked in the last Great War.
254
Last Will and Testament
For Pacifists to keep the brutal world outside
We’ve OflEa’s Dyke, and the caves at Castleton for
parents
Who dream of air-raids and want a place to hide.
Item, we leave to Professor Sargant Florence
Dartington HaU and all that is therein.
And Dartmoor Prison to Sir Herbert Pethick
Lawrence.
W. To Rex Warner, birdman, I leave Wicken Fen
And Hillborough Dovecote. To Sydney Newman
give
The Coronation Organ to play now and then.
W. L. The twin towers of the Crystal Palace we would
leave
To Leonard and Virginia Woolf, and Boston Stump
To Ernest Jones, round which they each may weave
Their special phantasies. To every tramp
We leave a harvest bam, a private drive
And a fenced deer park where he may make his
camp.
Snowdonia to Michael Roberts with our love.
To Constant Lambert the Three Choirs Festival,
And the Vale of Eden with the Pennine scarp above
To the children of the London East End. Sweet
Boars Hill
To Poets Laureate, past, present, and to come.
As for the parts of our bodies in this will
We allot them here as follows: to the Home
For Lost Dogs and Cats our Kvers and lights.
And our behinds to the Birmingham Hippodrome.
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Last Will and Testament
And our four eyes which cannot see for nuts
We leave to aU big-game hunters and to all
Apprentices to murder at the butts;
Our feet to hikers when their own feet fail;
To aU escapists our islands of Langahans;
And to Imperial Chemicals a pail
Of what in us would otherwise join the drains;
The Watch Committee can have our noses and
The British Association can have our brains;
Item our ears, apt for the slightest soimd,
We leave those Statesmen who happen to be de-
barred
From hearing how the wheels of State run round;
To Major Yogi-Brown our navels we award
And our pudenda we leave or rather fling
Our biographers and The Thames Conservancy
Board;
Lastly our hearts, whether they be right or wrong.
We leave neither to scientists nor doctors
But to those to whom they properly belong.
Our grit we beg to leave all sanitary inspectors,
Our faith, our hope, our chzuity we leave The
League
To help it to do something in the future to protect us.
Our cheerfulness to each s<piare-headed peg
That lives in a round hole, and our charm at its best
To those who cannot dig and are ashamed to heg.
Our powers of parrot memory we offer to assist
Examinees. Our hmnour, all we think is funny,
To Dr. Leavis and almost every psycho-analyst.
256
Last Will and Testament
To the Bishop of Bradford our discretion, if any;
And our carnivorous appetites we give away
To Professor Gilbert Murray. Item, our many
Faults to all parents that their families may see
No one expects them really to be good as gold.
ALfter due thought, we leave our lust in Chancery,
Our obstinacy to the untamed and wild.
W . I leave to my ex-pupils whether bright or dull
Especially to every homesick problem child
All the good times I Ve had since I left school.
And hope that Erika, my wife, may have her wish
, To see the just end of Hitler and his imjust rule.
W. L. To all the dictators who look so bold and fresh
The m i dni ght hours, the soft wind from the sweep-
ing wing
Of madness, and the intolerable tightening of the
mesh
Of history. We leave their marvellous native tongue
To Englishmen, and for our intelligent island pray
That to her virtuous beauties by all poets sxmg
She add at last an honest foreign policy.
For her oppressed, injured, insulted, and weak
The logic and the passion proper for victory.
We leave our age the quite considerable spark
Of private love and goodness which never leaves
An age, however awful, in the utter dark.
We leave the unconceived and unborn lives
A closer approximation to real happiness
Than has been reached by us, our neighbomrs or
their wives.
257
Last Will and Testament
To those who by ofSice or from inclmatiou use
Authority, a knowledge of their own misdeed
And all the hate that coercion must produce.
For the lost who from self-hatred cannot hide,
Such temporary refuge or engines of escape
From pain as Chance and Mercy can provide
And to the good who know how wide the gulf, how
deep
Between Ideal and Real, who being good have felt
The final temptation to withdraw, sit down and
weep.
We pray the power to take upon themselves the guilt
Of human action, though still as ready to confess
The imperfection of what can and must be built.
The wish and power to act, forgive, and bless.
258
Epilogue
For W. H, Auden
IN^ ow the winter nights begin
Lonely comfort walls me in;
So before the memory slip
I review our Iceland trip —
Not for me romantic nor
Idyll on a mythic shore
But a fancy turn, you know.
Sandwiched in a graver show.
Down in Europe Seville feU,
Nations germinating hell.
The Olympic games were run —
Spots upon the Aryan sim.
And the don in me set forth
How the landscape of the north
Had educed the saga style
Plodding forward nule by mile.
And the don in you replied
That the North begins inside,
Our ascetic guts require
Breathers from the Latin fire.
So although no ghost was scotched
We were happy while we watched
259
Epilogue
Ravens from their walls of shale
Cruise around the rotting whale,
Watched the sulphur basins boil.
Loops of steam uncoil and coil.
While the valley fades away
To a sketch of Judgment Day.
So we rode and joked and smoked
With no miracles evoked.
With no levitations won
In the thin unreal sun;
I n that island never found
Visions blossom from the ground.
No conversions like St. Paul,
No great happenings at all.
Holidays should be like this.
Free from over-emphasis.
Time for soul to stretch and spit
Before the world comes back on it.
Before the chimneys row on row
Sneer in smoke, ‘We told you so’
And the fog-bound sirens call
Ruin to the long sea-waU.
Rows of books around me stand.
Fence me roimd on either hand;
Through that forest of dead words
I would hunt the living birds —
Great black birds that fly alone
Slowly through a land of stone.
And the gulls who weave a free
Quilt of rhythm on the sea.
260
Epilogue
Here in Hampstead I sit late
Nights which no one shares and wait
F or the ’phone to ring or for
Unknown angels at the door;
Better were the northern skies
Than this desert in disguise —
Rugs and cushions and the long
Mirror which repeats the song.
F or the Htany of doubt
From these walls comes breathing out
Till the room becomes a pit
Humming with the fear of it
With the fear of loneliness
And uncommunicableness;
All the wires are cut, my friends
Live beyond the severed ends.
So I write these lines for you
Who have felt the death-wish too.
But your lust for life prevails —
Drinking coffee, telling tales.
Our prerogatives as men
Will be cancelled who knows when;
Still I drink your health before
The gun-butt raps upon the door.
L. M.
261
Appendix
Total Area: c. 39,760 square noiles
Total Population; c. 115,000
National debt: 41,938,000 kronur
National income: 14,312,000 krontu:
Principal creditor: Hambro’s Bank
1 . Rdation ofhabitMe to uninhabitable land
262
2. Kinds ofhahitabh land
263
Appendix
4 . Distribution of population by occupation
265
in. iofvas or yilla^es over- SCO inhahibiTiis
Appendix
5 . Graph showing urhanisation
266
Appendix
267
6 . Graph of exports and imports
Appendix
268
7 , Foreign trade
